


all the solutions were trial and error

by akisazame



Category: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (TV)
Genre: F/M, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, [extremely grocery clerk with half an eyelid voice] or IS IT?, a little bit A Christmas Carol, a little bit Groundhog Day, but not the one who does henna tattoos, canon-typical content warnings apply, technically canon compliant, they say you can't go back in time... but they are dumb 'cause you totally can, we're all finding ourselves!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-20 16:33:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17625839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akisazame/pseuds/akisazame
Summary: "So, what?" Rebecca mutters into her palms. "I spend two seconds thinking favorably about Josh but also about Nathaniel and now here you are to show me all the times in my past when they definitely loved me as though that's going to help me choose? Orwait," she shouts, pointing one finger at Dr. Dream Ghost Akopian accusingly, "you're going to show me all the fucked up things I did or they did or we did together so I can get over myself and forget about them becausewhy's it always have to be about the guys?" She says the last bit in a lower register, mimicking Dr. Akopian's voice. "Am I close? Am I anywhere in the ballpark?""It's a lot more nuanced than that," says Dr. Dream Ghost Akopian.Rebecca sighs. "Ain't that always the way."(post-4x07, Rebecca gets another visit from a dream ghost.)





	1. let's leave it vague, it's more interesting that way

**Author's Note:**

> big thanks to [FullmetalChords](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FullmetalChords/pseuds/FullmetalChords) for talking me into writing this despite my better judgment, being a fantastic sounding board when i needed to plot yell, and weirdly shockingly completely believing in me. thanks also to my husband for not knowing what the fuck he was getting into when he decided to join me in bingeing cxgf on netflix, for not getting annoyed when i earnestly sing tell me i'm okay patrick at him, and for beta reading this fic because he's just a gem like that.
> 
> the following chapter may or may not be entirely representative of the remainder's content.

In this precise moment, at 10:38pm on a Monday night, Rebecca Bunch has a lot of regrets.

Truthfully, Rebecca Bunch has a lot of regrets on any given moment on any given day at any given time. She thinks she's getting better about not raking herself over the metaphorical coals about them, but they're all still there, all the time, ready to cheerfully present themselves when she least suspects it, just to be stupid assholes. But right now, at 10:38pm on a Monday night, as she dutifully rolls out pretzels in the lobby of her former employer's office building the day after her return flight from her mother's charity event in New York, she's mostly focusing on the specific life choices that have led her to be here, at 10:38pm on a Monday night, dutifully rolling out pretzels instead of curled up in her bed blissfully sleeping away the jet lag.

She doesn't hate her job. She doesn't hate herself. She doesn't even hate her mother, at least not right now, about this. Mostly she just hates the linear progression of time, and whatever evil genius decided to invent time zones.

Pretzel prep is not a difficult task — at least, not anymore — so Rebecca's mind wanders, and within a few minutes she's back to thinking about Josh, and Nathaniel, and glitter explosions, all things that she'd thought she'd left safely behind her. Josh's grand gesture with the mural is a little annoying in retrospect, because seriously who remodels someone's wall art without the other person's express permission, but the moment they'd shared afterwards next to it had reminded her of all the reasons why she'd been drawn to Josh in the first place. It reminded her of camp, when Josh had been new and even just the act of knowing him had felt so freeing, like a missing puzzle piece finally slotting into place. She knows there are so many logical reasons why letting Josh move in is a terrible idea, but she can't deny the fact that his presence in her personal space comforts her. Not everything has to be about romance, despite what Paula and popular media and Rebecca's own traitorous brain want her to think.

Then there's Nathaniel. She's frustrated more than anything, because she's never been able to logically follow her patterns of attraction to him. Once she liked him because he was ruthless, and now she likes him because he's nice? She wanted him when she was unavailable, then wanted him again when _he_ was unavailable, then didn't want him when he told her how desperately he needed her, and now she wants him when he doesn't seem to care? It's stupid. It sucks and it's stupid. She's tired of men. Tired of glitter. Just tired in general. Thanks again, time zone guy.

As her hands keep absently rolling and shaping the dough, her gaze drifts to a chair at the opposite side of the lobby. Chairs like that are never comfortable, meant less to be sit upon and more to convey a sense of coziness in an otherwise stark and boring corporate environment. But right now, with the exhaustion seeping into Rebecca's bones as her brain insists that it's almost 2am, you idiot, what are you still doing awake, it looks like the most comfortable chair she's ever seen.

She looks down at the prep table, the sheets of pretzels, the flour coating her hands, then looks back at the chair. A quick sit can't hurt. Five minutes, tops. She'll set an alarm.

She wipes her hands on her Rebetzel's apron before taking it off and tossing it on the counter, then strides purposefully across the lobby, curls up in the chair, and closes her eyes.

Some amount of time passes while Rebecca's eyes are closed — maybe the five minutes she'd meant to have them closed, or maybe five hours. Either way, her alarm definitely does not go off, because she didn't remember to set it. Instead, she's awoken by the wind rattling the windows, immediately followed by all the lights abruptly shutting off.

"Oh my god," Rebecca mumbles into her drool-covered sleeve while glaring in the general direction of the windows, "are you kidding me right now with this?" She stretches and rubs her eyes and starts to get up to finish her pretzel prep in the dark, goddammit, but stops moving when a spotlight turns on from the ceiling, a perfect circle of light that illuminates —

"Dr. Akopian?!"

The woman in the spotlight haughtily adjusts her therapy shawl. "Not quite, Rebecca."

Rebecca squints, her sleep-addled brain slowly processing the person she's seeing in conjunction with her current location. No, Dr. Akopian definitely doesn't belong in the lobby of MountainTop's office building. She frowns, bites her lower lip contemplatively, then tilts her head to the side. "Dr. Dream Ghost Akopian?"

Instead of saying anything, Dr. Dream Ghost Akopian just smiles and gestures, causing a second spotlight to turn on directly over Rebecca's head. Rebecca looks up to see it, but is immediately blinded. Obviously.

"No, wait," Rebecca says, blinking furiously to clear the spots from her vision. "We're not on a plane. I was just on a plane! You missed your window for dream ghosting."

"No one ever said dream ghosting was an airplane-exclusive activity," Dr. Dream Ghost Akopian replies.

"Besides," Rebecca goes on, "I'm really not in the mood to relive any childhood trauma right now. And I don't need to! I'm definitely not having any kind of crisis!"

Dr. Dream Ghost Akopian snorts a laugh.

Rebecca pouts and crosses her arms. "I'm not! I'm leaving the house again and I have a job that I don't hate and I worked things out with my mother sort of and this thing with Josh and Nathaniel wait no that's it oh my god that's the thing isn't it." She unfolds her arms and buries her face in her hands.

"Mmm-hmm," Dr. Dream Ghost Akopian says.

"So, what?" Rebecca mutters into her palms. "I spend two seconds thinking favorably about Josh but also about Nathaniel and now here you are to show me all the times in my past when they definitely loved me as though that's going to help me choose? Or _wait,_ " she shouts, pointing one finger at Dr. Dream Ghost Akopian accusingly, "you're going to show me all the fucked up things I did or they did or we did together so I can get over myself and forget about them because _why's it always have to be about the guys?_ " She says the last bit in a lower register, mimicking Dr. Akopian's voice. "Am I close? Am I anywhere in the ballpark?"

"It's a lot more nuanced than that," says Dr. Dream Ghost Akopian.

Rebecca sighs. "Ain't that always the way."

"We're going to do things a little differently from before. So, instead of being a passive observer..." Dr. Dream Ghost Akopian trails off into what can only be a pause for dramatic effect. Rebecca make a get-on-with-it gesture. "This time, I'm going to let you actively relive three days of your life."

Rebecca immediately barks out a laugh. "Okay, you must be confused, because that?" She draws a circle in the air around Dr. Dream Ghost Akopian's face and then points for emphasis. "That is not any different than what I do myself every night in the 25 minutes before the sleeping pills kick in. I'm such an expert in wallowing in misery over every stupid thing I've ever done or said, Harvard should've given me a second bachelor's degree. Would that be arts or sciences? Arts, right?"

"And then," continues Dr. Dream Ghost Akopian, as though Rebecca hadn't said anything, "you get to choose one of those days to change for real."

There's a click as Rebecca's mouth snaps shut. She pulls one leg up to her chest and rests her chin on her knee. Then she tilts her head and hums thoughtfully. "Keep talking."

Dr. Dream Ghost Akopian turns and walks to the elevator, then presses the up arrow button. "The three days you get to relive are predetermined turning points in your life. You'll have all your memories of what happened last time, and all your other memories up until the present day." The elevator dings, the door slides open, and Dr. Dream Ghost Akopian reaches inside to wheel out a huge flat-screen TV. "You can change whatever you'd like on the days you get to relive, and you'll get to relive all three before you have to decide which one you're going to keep." She touches the screen and it turns on, bringing up an interface that's strangely reminiscent of Netflix, except none of the episodes have proper titles and the show's poster image is a picture of Rebecca holding a balloon.

"Uh, what the hell is that?" Rebecca asks.

"Don't worry about it," Dr. Dream Ghost Akopian says with a dismissive wave of her free hand. The fingers of her other hand are hovering over the words Season 3, Episode 2. "Are you ready?"

"Uh, no, I still kind of have a lot of questi—"

Dr. Dream Ghost Akopian taps the screen, and the world fades to black.


	2. however now i know a certain beau

There's an annoying noise. Rebecca does not like the annoying noise.

She curls on her side, pressing one ear hard against the pillows and covering the other ear with her hand. The noise persists, cloying. Why won't someone stop that noise?

Suddenly all of Rebecca's blankets are ripped unceremoniously off of her. She groans, rolling back and forth in protest, but all the heat she'd built up instantly dissipates.

"Your alarm tone sucks," says Heather's voice. Rebecca opens one eye just enough to see Heather standing at the foot of her bed, pajama-clad and bed-headed, Rebecca's comforter and blanket and flat sheet in her hands. As soon as she realizes Rebecca is finally awake, Heather wads up all the covers and tosses them into the corner of the room. "If you're not up in the next five minutes, I'm taking the shower, and I don't have class until 3 so it'll be a reeeal luxurious one."

Heather marches out of the room before Rebecca can fully process the words she'd said. Class? Heather graduated like a year ago. Also Heather moved out! What is she even doing here? And why won't that annoying noise stop?

Rebecca reaches for her horrible beeping phone, sees the date, and remembers. Right. Dream ghost.

She toggles the alarm off, then notices her black nail polish and the tips of her dark dyed hair. Then she looks at the date again.

"Really?" she mutters. "No guidance at all? What the hell am I doing here?"

The phone buzzes in Rebecca's hand, along with a notification for a text from a withheld number. The message reads: _Try number two with guy number one._

Rebecca rolls her eyes at the phone. "Great. So helpful. Just gonna relive the emotional trauma post-being-left-at-the-altar real quick. My fave."

She drags herself out of bed, spikes her phone down on the mattress to signify her displeasure with this whole scenario, then takes a shower before Heather boxes her out. Once she's rinsed off the usual morning grogginess, she's pleased to realize that the jet lag that had been dogging her back in the present is completely gone. Which makes sense, now that she thinks about it. As much as any of this makes sense, anyway.

After several weeks of not having to dress up for work, it's a little vexing to have to go back to classy business attire, but she manages to fall back into her old routines and make herself mostly presentable. She has a vague idea of what to expect from the day she's reliving, but can't place the significance of this specific date. Now that she thinks back to the period of time between her disaster wedding and her disaster suicide attempt, she finds that a huge amount of it blends together in an amorphous fog. Every specific event that she does remember — the failed sex tape filming, confronting Josh at the church, lashing out at all of her friends, sleeping with Marco — is so unspeakably awful that each one has seared into her memory with dazzling clarity, but this date doesn't match up with any of those.

It's pointless to dwell on it, she thinks as she crams a bagel into her mouth on her way out the door, and it doesn't seem as though additional text message-based help is forthcoming from Dr. Dream Ghost Akopian, so the best she can do is just wing it until she figures it out.

Unfortunately, she isn't any closer to the aforementioned out-figuring when she's in the conference room with Paula later that morning. "Oh, I am so excited," Paula is saying, and she genuinely looks it, her eyes sweeping down the string of bullet points that stretch the length of her laptop screen. "Suing Josh Chan is the best thing we have ever done. Doesn't it feel great to do something rational and effective?"

Rational and effective, Rebecca thinks. Like letting a dream ghost send you magically back in time? Very rational. The jury's still out on effectiveness.

"I mean, can you believe your first revenge idea was to mail Josh poop in plastic containers?" Paula goes on, and Rebecca shakes the fog out of her head, bringing her back to the present. The past? This is confusing. And she'd definitely forgotten about the poop. Why did she ever let herself do anything at all?

"That was a silly thing I definitely did not do," Rebecca says. She vaguely remembers saying that same thing the first time; it feels like reading lines for a performance, or like when she hears a musical theater song she hasn't listened to in years but still somehow knows all the words. She and Paula banter about the poop and Josh's idiocy, but all the while Rebecca's mind is racing, trying to figure out what she's supposed to change about today.

But then Paula says, "Oh, I wish I could see the look on his face in twelve to fifteen months when a judge hits him with a six to eight hundred dollar fine," and it hits Rebecca like a water polo ball to the head.

 _Can we take a quick timeout for some nonjudgmental truth time?_ she remembers herself saying. _Instead of this, can we do something like, savage and brutal and primal?_

Oh god. Nathaniel.

Like almost every single one of Rebecca's ideas, it had seemed brilliant at the time. She'd wanted to do something horrible and Nathaniel was a horrible person, so naturally Nathaniel was the answer to her problems. She'd approached him and bribed him with sex and even then he hadn't wanted to do it, but she'd forced his hand. And then he'd gone too far, set things up to attack Josh's family in ways she hadn't even fathomed, and she'd made him undo it all anyway. It had been a waste of time so spectacular that it had spurred her into the completely ill-advised church confrontation, which had felt good for all of five seconds before everything blew up in her face.

Despite all that, she can't deny that her decision to go to Nathaniel's apartment that night — tonight — was the real starting point of their relationship, in all the forms it ended up taking. The problem, she realizes now with the benefit of hindsight, was that it started completely as a pretense. Maybe, she thinks, that's why every attempt at a relationship kept turning sideways.

"You okay, Cookie?" Paula is saying, and Rebecca realizes that Paula's been trying to get her attention for at least a minute, maybe more. "Something on your mind?"

Way too much, Rebecca thinks. She can't tell Paula any of her thoughts on the Nathaniel situation, because from where Paula sits there is no Nathaniel situation. It's all artifice based on a future that might not ever exist. Instead Rebecca glances down at Paula's laptop, then back up to her best friend's face, which has concern and hopefulness painted across it in equal measure.

"This... this is really great, Paula," Rebecca says, reaching out to squeeze one of Paula's hands between both of hers. Paula's face lights up with a relieved smile, and Rebecca feels herself smiling back. It's always been like this between them, she realizes, two mirrors reflecting back on each other. Not such a great look when they're concocting nefarious plans, but uniquely satisfying when they're using their powers for good. Which, Rebecca realizes with a pang of regret, was exactly what Paula's lawsuit plan had been, before Rebecca ruined it by being impulsive and selfish. "We actually have the high ground!"

"We never have the high ground!" Paula chirps back excitedly, and Rebecca starts to think that there might be something to Dr. Dream Ghost Akopian's scheme after all.

The bright feeling follows Rebecca through the rest of the morning and into the afternoon, right up until she gets a meeting invite from Nathaniel. Suddenly she's nervous, pacing up and down the length of the conference room, feeling itchy and trapped in her own skin. She definitely can't say anything to him here at work, because it would be weird and inappropriate on top of reminding her of all the weird and inappropriate things they eventually did do at work together. Besides, she doesn't want to say anything in front of Tim, even if it doesn't seem like Tim is firing on all cylinders today. So she just has to spend this meeting pretending everything is normal, except for the fact that being disconnected from her own personal timeline means that she doesn't have an especially clear grasp on what 'normal' is supposed to be. Is she acting devastated enough? She feels like she should be acting more devastated.

All the thoughts race out of her head when Nathaniel marches into the conference room. "Here's the deal, losers," he barks. "You know that place on East Cameron? The family Korean barbeque mom-pop? It's been there for thirty years?"

Rebecca feels as though she's supposed to say something. She said something before, didn't she? Why can't she think of it? She's just standing there, hands running up and down the length of her upper arms, face as blank as Tim's.

If Nathaniel notices Rebecca's discomfiture, he doesn't show it. Instead he leans over towards Tim and claps his hands in front of Tim's face. "Wake up, Tim! The Korean barbeque on East Cameron!"

Tim blinks several times. "Chae Won's BBQ?"

"He's about to be obliterated," Nathaniel continues, unfazed. "The Ivywood MallCorp, who we represent, needs the lot that Chae Won is on, so we're gonna get that place shut down, and we're gonna get it demolished, so that our client can build their discount wicker lacquered napkin ring capiz shell chandelier palace."

"Nathaniel, we can't do that," Rebecca hears herself say. Right, of course. She remembers this now. The meeting continues as Nathaniel brings in newly-rehired-again George and details his plans for defaming poor sweet Chae Won, but Rebecca's attention is divided. She needs to get Nathaniel alone so she can talk to him, but she doesn't know how to do it without an excuse. But she can't come up with an excuse, because excuses are all they ever gave to each other. Her brain chases itself around in circles until she looks up and realizes that Nathaniel has already left.

"He's so awful," George says, shaking his head at her and expecting commiseration.

"Terrible," Rebecca mutters. "Awful. Bad." She's only half talking about Nathaniel.

She leaves the conference room and starts walking, not paying much attention to where she's going until she opens a door, steps inside, and locks it behind her. Then she looks up and realizes she's in the supply closet, the least neutral private location she could've picked. Great job, subconscious. She leans back against the door and slides down it until she's sitting on the floor, then places her head in her hands. She can't look at anything in this room anymore, because every single surface has some phantom memory of Nathaniel. They'd banged in here for eight whole months. Well, future-banged. Like a hundred times. God. Who exactly did they think they were fooling? And why? So Rebecca could keep him at arm's length, because that was the only way to keep herself from obsessing? So they could both pretend that they didn't mean all that much to one another? She has no idea why she ever thought she needed lessons in evilness from Nathaniel, because she's the absolute worst person on earth.

But then, finally, the rules of the situation she's found herself in fully crystallize in her mind. If she, today, doesn't go to Nathaniel's apartment to beg his help in her revenge on Josh, then naturally that specific event won't happen. But that also means that everything that comes after will change, too. She can skip all the pretense with Nathaniel entirely. Be honest. For the first time ever, maybe the two of them can be on the same page.

Rebecca scrambles to her feet and practically runs out of the supply closet to Nathaniel's office. But by the time she gets there, he's already gone.

Well, fine. She'll just have to return to the scene of the crime.

She doesn't have to look up Nathaniel's address in the company directory this time, because she knows how to get to his apartment by heart. She's slept here on more than one occasion. This isn't even the first time she's stood tentatively outside his door, hoping she'll be struck by a lightning bolt of courage. She didn't bother changing out of the dress she'd worn to the office; she's not trying to play the femme fatale this time. Maybe that's why she's so restless, she thinks as she leans against the wall next to Nathaniel's apartment door. She's so used to giving herself a role to play. What's her motivation? She feels unmoored.

For a split second, Rebecca considers the merits of running away. It would be so easy to give in to cowardice, like she did before. But that would be stupid. This whole day might not even be real. She drags herself away from the wall, centers herself in the middle of the doorway, and knocks.

Almost a full minute passes. Rebecca shuffles from foot to foot, as if keeping her body in constant motion will prevent her from bolting to the elevator. She reaches her hand out to knock again just as Nathaniel finally opens the door. "What are you doing here?" he says, looking completely exasperated. "How do you know where I live?"

Abruptly, Rebecca realizes she neglected to think this far ahead. All that time spent hemming and hawing, and her brain didn't bother to come up with even a rudimentary script? Idiot. "I have my ways," she squeaks out, her voice the polar opposite of self-assured and sexy. She squeezes her eyes shut, pained. "Company directory." Technically true.

"What do you want?" Nathaniel asks. His hand is still on the door, ready to slam it in Rebecca's face at any moment.

 _I want your hard, throbbing ruthlessness,_ she hears her own voice saying in her head, _and I want it bad._ She takes in a shaky breath, her gaze drifting down the curve of Nathaniel's jaw to the unbuttoned collar of his shirt. Something deep inside her, which has spent the last several weeks curled up tight, rapidly unspools. She has a vision of herself leaping on him, flying squirrel-style; she feels her legs tense up, ready to jump.

She exhales slowly. "I just... I need to talk. To you. We should talk, the two of us, together." She runs one hand over her face and back through her hair, trying to focus. "Can I please come in?"

For a moment, she's convinced he'll say no. She remembers standing here before, in her black trench coat and smokey makeup, desperately trying to convince him to hear her out. But there's a different sort of look on his face this time, incongruous with the ice cold, in control demeanor he had at the office earlier in the day. Wordlessly, he pushes the door the rest of the way open and steps aside to let her through.

Nathaniel motions to his couch and Rebecca perches on the far edge, like a prey animal ready to flee at the first sign of danger. He sits on the opposite end, as far from her as possible. "So," she begins, then realizes she doesn't have a follow-up. Her gaze darts around the apartment, looking for a catalyst for small talk, but it's hard to come up with pithy comments about a location you've already had sex in. "This is your apartment," she says, feeling like the world's biggest idiot the second it comes out of her mouth. She wants to dissolve into the couch and live the rest of her life as some kind of semi-sentient couch liquid. Which is really gross, actually.

"Is that what you came all the way here to say?" Nathaniel asks. To her vague surprise, he doesn't sound angry, but some combination of annoyed and amused. When she finally lets herself look at him, there's just a hint of a smile on his face, and she gets the feeling that he doesn't even realize it's there.

That hint of a smile is what does her in. "I think it's really important that we discuss the latent sexual tension between us, the possibility of that sexual tension also being romantic tension, and move to resolve said tension or tensions." Nathaniel's eyes widen just a bit as the words pour out of her mouth unchecked, and that only spurs her further. "And it's very important that you know that this isn't about me rebounding, or you picking up my shattered pieces and putting me back together. This is about two independently-minded adults with free will choosing to enter into some form of consenting relationship, for a period of time to be determined. Are these terms acceptable to you?"

Nathaniel, she notices, for all that he's attempting to appear casual, seems to have a death grip on the arm of the couch. "Funny how you finally start sounding professional as soon as you step out of the office," he says breezily. "Did you bring a legal brief for me to peruse? A contract to sign?"

Rebecca rubs her temples with her fingertips, already exasperated with both him and herself. Maybe she should've gone with the sexy trench coat, because she could not possibly feel any less alluring right now. Not that Nathaniel has any room to talk, after the matter-of-fact way he'd propositioned her in the elevator. "No, we are going to talk, like humans do, because that is a normal human way to behave." As opposed to going to fancy masquerade balls, she thinks, or suing each other.

"Are you even listening to yourself?" Nathaniel makes a big show of rolling his eyes and sighing, but what Rebecca notices is the way he uses those movements to mask himself shifting just a bit closer to her. "Fine. Let's talk."

"Fine," she echoes, steepling her fingers in front of her mouth and trying to ignore how his proximity is making her skin hum. The freshly-uncoiled thing inside her pulses along with her heartbeat. "So, um, the aforementioned sexual tension. It is... extant."

"Yes," Nathaniel agrees. She doesn't think she imagines the way his voice chokes on the syllable, just a little.

Rebecca's body feels like a live wire, pulled taut, ready to snap and shower sparks everywhere. She curls her toes inside her shoes. "A- and the romantic tension," she starts.

"Can't we skip that part for now?" Nathaniel interrupts, turning and moving even closer to her on the couch. She thinks he's going to keep coming, bridging the gap completely, but he stops halfway, his hand hovering uselessly in the space between them.

This is the part, Rebecca thinks, where they should be crashing together, unstoppable force meets immovable object. The fantasy plays out in her mind, his body pressing her against the leather of the couch as his mouth slowly devours her. She wants that, almost more than she can stand. But that's not all she wants. It was never all she wanted, even when she let herself believe that was true.

Impulsively, she reaches out and grabs hold of his outstretched hand, lacing her fingers between his and lowering it back down to the couch. That's all she'll allow herself for now. "No," she says, trying to convince herself almost as much as him, "we can't skip that part. We need to talk about that part because otherwise we'll never talk about that part. Sex is all well and good but that's not all I want, and I hope that you want more than that, too. I know I have a lot of things to work on, and..." She breaks off, pained, because she has no idea how he'll respond to this next part. She thinks about how he reacted after she got out of jail and tries to dial that back to this Nathaniel, to make any sort of educated guess, and finds that she can't. "A- and I know you won't like to hear it, but you have a lot of things to work on too." She can tell he wants to say something, but she can't let him yet, because if she hears his voice she'll lose all her nerve. "But if we both work on those things then I think... I think we could be really great together. Like, together-together. For realsies." She presses her lips together and looks at him, really looks at him, for the first time since she started her little speech.

In public, Nathaniel has never been easy to read. He's spent his whole life building a masterful facade, locking his emotions deep inside. Rebecca knows this about him because she did it too, to keep her mother off her back when the alternative was possibly ending up back in the mental institution, where she spent weeks not feeling anything at all. But in private, after she'd spent hours breaking him down bit by bit while they'd been trapped in the elevator, she'd found him to be, if not easily read, at least manageable. Nathaniel's face is like a foreign language, and she may not be fluent, but she knows enough to get by. That's why she doesn't expect to see the way his adoration paints itself across his face in this moment, so that anyone with eyes could see it and understand.

Nathaniel's hand tightens in hers, just this side of crushing. She feels pinned by the weight of his gaze. "I have to tell you there are feelings inside of me that are pertinent to you."

Rebecca remembers this, vaguely, but in a different location and filtered through the thick layer of anxiety that had been crushing her at the time. She barely remembers how she responded, because only minutes later she'd been verbally tearing all her friends to shreds. She shakes her head once, chasing the memory away, and can't help the way the corner of her mouth turns up. "Now who's sounding professional?"

"Stop it," he snipes at her, but there's no venom in it. "I've been trying to deny my very embarrassing and very human emotions, but you showed up here and wanted to talk about sex and romance so I don't think I can't lie about it anymore." He takes a breath and pulls her hand closer to him, shifting his grip so that her knuckles are resting against the fabric of his shirt. "I... feel things for you."

It's not much, as far as love confessions go. He's done better. Maybe, right now, at this point in linear time, he hasn't quite made it to the L-word yet, consciously or subconsciously or both. And that's okay. Rebecca can work with that. Honestly, she's not sure if she's there right now either. She moves her hand beneath his, so her palm is pressing against the plane of his chest. He's so warm. "I feel things for you too."

"And you're right," he goes on, letting her hand go so he can reach out to brush her hair back behind her ear. She leans into his touch unthinkingly. Choreography has always been their strong suit. "As much as it pains me to say it, neither of us are perfect." The corner of his mouth turns up as his thumb brushes along her cheekbone. "Just don't spread that around the office, okay?"

"I don't know," she says as she finally lets herself shift on the couch, putting one knee on the cushion and using it as leverage to press herself forward, into his space. His free hand comes up to rest on her hip, steadying her as she leans towards him. "There's only so many secrets I can keep. I might have to spill about Harry Potter."

"How very Slytherin of you," he murmurs just before she kisses him.

Starting from that first time in the elevator, she's always kissed Nathaniel with an undercurrent of urgency, as though they'll be caught at any moment. Most of the time, especially during their eight month affair, the urgency was an actual physical reality. The rest of the time, Rebecca realizes, she was being chased by her own mind, racing to keep one step ahead of her doubts and insecurities. But now, instead of devouring him like she's starving, she takes her time, just pressing their lips together at first, soft and almost chaste. She expects him to push but he doesn't, letting her set the pace, the hand on her face sliding back to tangle gently in her hair.

They kiss like that, measured and deliberate, for what seems to Rebecca to be a small eternity. At the very least, the restless swirl of desire that's been dogging her ever since she got here seems to think so. She tamps it down as much as she can but it's only a matter of time before she can feel it radiating out into her fingers, buzzing beneath her skin, pulsing between her thighs. Her whole body feels too hot and she realizes it has been months since the last time she had sex with anything other than her own hand or the shower head or Heather's vibrator and god, she's only human.

"Listen," she says breathily as she tears herself away from his mouth and starts hurriedly unbuttoning his shirt. "I know I said all those things about romance and feelings, but the sexual tension is still _very_ extant."

"I can't disagree," Nathaniel says as he pushes her jacket off, then leans in to press an open-mouthed kiss to her shoulder.

"So what do you say," Rebecca goes on, discarding Nathaniel's shirt on the floor and sliding her hands down the bare expanse of his chest, "about relieving some of that tension through a little vigorous activity?"

Nathaniel's answer is to wrap his arms tightly around Rebecca's waist as he stands up, lifting her off the couch. She lets her shoes drop off her feet before he sets her back down, which was a terrible mistake because she needed every inch of height those heels were providing. Luckily it proves to not be an issue for long; they cross the apartment together, Nathaniel walking slowly backwards as Rebecca pursues him. He unzips her dress and peels her out of it while she unbuckles his belt and strips off his pants, so by the time she backs him up to sit at the foot of his bed they're both mostly naked.

This is the part Rebecca knows by heart. It's so natural, crawling into Nathaniel's lap, feeling him hard against her through the fabric of his boxer briefs. She rolls her hips against his and they shudder in unison, like they're feeling the same earthquake. He only has to fumble with her bra for a few seconds before he's pushing it off of her, which is a talent she'd somehow forgotten he has after all the months of mostly-clothed office sex, but she's definitely not complaining as he pulls her body up against his and takes one nipple into his mouth. In fact, she remembers as his hands roam over her back and other breast while his mouth sucks and nips and teases, Nathaniel is exceedingly good at all the parts of sex that aren't insert tab A into slot B, but it's been almost a year since he's gotten to put those skills into practice with her.

Well, no, that's not right, because from his perspective he's never gotten to put those skills into practice with her at all. Time travel is _confusing._

Then Nathaniel's hand is trailing down her stomach, fingertips slipping around the fabric of her panties and touching her where she aches, and all thoughts of timelines and dream ghosts fly out of Rebecca's head. He catches her eye, tilting his head at her, asking for permission, and _god,_ consent is so sexy. She nods enthusiastically and he lifts his free hand, holds one finger in the air and twirls it, all the while trailing his mouth back up to her neck, which is fine because she doesn't need words to know what he means.

They crash back into each other on the bed, the fabric of his expensive comforter soft against her back, and he wriggles her panties off of her as he trails kisses down her body, down, down, down until his head is between her thighs. It's easy to forget that this is his first time with her because it seems like he already knows everything she likes, or maybe that's her own fault for being so revved up that it's impossible to not know which actions are pushing her closer to the edge. Her orgasm comes fast and hot, sparking behind her eyelids, and she reaches down to grasp Nathaniel's hand as he works her through it, then lets her come back down.

"That was like, fifty percent of what I had in mind re: releasing tension," Rebecca breathes once she's capable of stringing the sentence together.

Nathaniel, still kneeling on the floor at the foot of the bed, rests his cheek against her knee. "Didn't sound like fifty percent to me."

Rebecca rolls her eyes. "Don't get a complex." She points at him, then beckons him forward, then makes the same twirling finger motion that he did. He doesn't need words either.

She can taste herself on his mouth when they kiss again, once she has him where she wants him, naked and lying back on the bed with her thighs straddling him. She starts to reach for the drawer where he keeps his condoms until she realizes she shouldn't, because that's knowledge she wouldn't already have. He gets the hint, though, and it's not long before she's lowering herself onto him, watching his face with satisfaction as his eyes roll back in his head.

They go slowly, because she's still sensitive, because she's worried he'll go off like a rocket, because they can. It's almost sad to realize the novelty of having sex without being on a timer, and Rebecca lets herself revel in it, gratuitous and self-indulgent. It's as though her mouth wants to make up for lost time as she kisses him all the ways she knows how, soft to hard, leisurely to insistent. She keeps changing their rhythm, slow to fast to slow again, and she knows it won't mean anything to him but it's everything to her, conducting their pleasure as a concerto rather than a capriccio. It's tempting to see how long she can draw it out, to keep him teetering on the knife's edge, but there's only so much she can take too; she shifts slightly on top of him, changing the angle to one she knows will destroy him. She doesn't think he'll have the presence of mind to make sure she's getting off too, so she's halfway to reaching for herself when his hand intercepts. Her rhythm falters and suddenly he's taking control, gripping her hip with his free hand so he can turn them both over, driving her into the mattress until she sees stars.

When her eyelids flutter open again, Nathaniel is gazing down at her with an expression she can barely define. He brushes her hair back from her forehead and presses a kiss there before settling in beside her on the bed. "Hey," he says dreamily, like he can't believe she's really here.

"Hey," she says back, because she wasn't here the first time.

She rolls onto her side to face him, using his outstretched arm as a pillow. "Think we got to that hundred percent," Nathaniel teases, levity undercut by the throatiness of his voice.

She's feeling far too sated to come up with a witty rejoinder. "For now."

"Stay?" he asks, running his hand up and down the length of her back, and even after knowing him both intimately and platonically for over a year, she thinks this is the most vulnerable she's ever seen him.

She leans in to press a kiss to the side of his mouth. "Let me go text Heather and clean up a bit." Nathaniel whines, pulling her closer to him, and Rebecca laughs. "I'll be gone for like two seconds."

He relents, of course, because Nathaniel has never been forceful with her in bed unless she wanted it. She wanders out to the living room first, to retrieve her phone and also Nathaniel's shirt, because she knows how much he loves it when she wears his clothes. She doesn't check the phone until she's in the bathroom, and is surprised to see she already has a text notification.

She's not so surprised when she sees it's from a withheld number. _Getting laid wasn't really the point of the exercise._

Rebecca scrunches up her nose and types back: _I have had a really hard couple of months so please let me have this._

She gets a Message Undeliverable error when she hits Send. Of course.

As expected, Nathaniel's face lights up when she crawls back into bed wearing his button-down. She tucks herself into the crook of his arm, feeling content in a way that she hasn't felt before. It's not just about the oxytocin, or just about Nathaniel, but about the fact that this whole encounter felt... better. Healthier. Maybe she was a little desperate, but it wasn't entirely about desperation. She feels, for once, like this is a good first step.

"I can hear you thinking," Nathaniel says, pressing a kiss into her hair. "Did you want to talk?"

She does, she thinks. She wants to figure out what she's feeling. She wants to help Nathaniel figure out what he feels. She wants things to keep feeling healthy between them, instead of constantly obfuscated by whatever molehill they've made into a mountain. But that doesn't have to be today. If she chooses this, they'll have the rest of linear time to move forward.

"Tomorrow," she says, stretching up to kiss him before snuggling back in, her leg thrown over both of his.


	3. he's not the brightest but he's not dumb as a rock

The annoying noise is back, and Rebecca still does not like it.

She rolls over without opening her eyes, expecting to find at least a warm spot where Nathaniel once was, but the rest of the bed is cold. There's a brief moment of panic before she realizes that there is far too much sunlight in the room; her eyes fly open and she finds herself not in Nathaniel's bedroom, and not in her own bedroom, but in her previous bedroom, back at the apartment complex.

 _Ugh._ Dream ghost.

There's no Heather to come force her out of bed, at least not without a dash of breaking and entering, so Rebecca turns off her alarm without really looking at the screen and lies on her bed for a few minutes, staring at the ceiling. Images of Nathaniel from last night keep fluttering through her head, and it is definitely having a physiological effect on her that she does not want to carry into the work day.

Well, it's nothing her hand and the shower head can't fix.

She doesn't even remember to check the date until she's out of the shower, but just like before, it doesn't give her any big clues. She's gone back in time about eight more months, which she remembers is roughly around the time she went to the youth camp with Josh. But pulling up her calendar app confirms that the weekend of the camp has already come and gone; today's calendar has nothing on it except a meeting at 3:30pm. "That's cruel and unusual," she mutters as she taps on the event to check the details. "Who the hell schedules a meeting at 3:30?" Other than her coworkers, none of the names on the invite ring a bell. This day must be significant to her relationship with Josh, but she has no idea why.

Then again, maybe this date isn't significant to Josh at all. Dr. Dream Ghost Akopian had said she'd get to relive three days, so maybe this is some rando other thing. Well, she won't figure it out by staring at her phone. She gets dressed and is slipping on her shoes when there's a knock at her patio door. She turns around, fully expecting to see Heather, but instead —

"Greg," she says, all the air rushing out of her lungs.

It would be a horrible lie to say that she hasn't thought of Greg at all in the year and a half since he left West Covina. Certainly he hasn't been in the forefront of her mind, but that's mainly due to proximity. Either way, there's a world of difference between thinking about him during her late night pity parties and actually seeing him, standing there in front of her, undeniably real.

She can't let herself think about it too much, because the look on Greg's face makes it very clear that he doesn't really want to be there. She scurries over to open the door. "Yo," Greg says, nonchalant.

"Yo," Rebecca says, trying to ignore the butterflies in her stomach. What is she, twelve years old? "Cool. Um... haven't seen you in a while." Wait, has she? Oh god. 

"Yeah... I've been avoiding you," Greg replies, not quite meeting Rebecca's eyes.

She almost laughs. Moving to the other side of the country is absolutely one way to avoid someone. Not that he's talking about that. Still, the irony is off the charts. "By showing up at my door?"

"Heather said you had something for her?" Obviously, Rebecca has no idea what that is. She shrugs, which only makes Greg look more annoyed. "For her coding class?" he prompts.

"The hard drive!" Rebecca exclaims, clapping her hands. "Right. Yes. Of course. I'll go get it." She practically runs from the room, grateful to have a moment's reprieve. Somehow, she manages to remember where the hard drive is, despite not having lived in this apartment for well over a year. She tries not to think about the way Greg looked at her, like he couldn't stand being in her presence. But then again, when she remembers all the horrible things she would've done to him before this specific point in time, she can't particularly blame him.

"Looks nice in here," Greg calls from the other room. She wishes he wouldn't; it's harder to pretend he's not here if he won't stop talking. "You decorated. Some succulents, some candles, you hung the fish..."

She hates this, all of a sudden. She hates that she has to talk to Greg, to act like their terrible relationship never happened, like he didn't break her heart at Jayma's wedding, like he didn't break her heart again when he abandoned her at the airport, like he didn't buttdial her on one of the worst nights of her entire life. It hurts, far more than she had expected it to. But none of that has happened yet. The only horrible things that have happened between them were all her fault. "So," she says, voice strained, "you and Heather."

"Yeah?" Greg says.

"That's still a thang?" Rebecca asks. She's not entirely sure why she's going down this path again. Maybe to prove to herself that it doesn't matter that right now, and also in the present, Greg belongs to someone else.

Greg frowns. "Yeah, it's a bit of a thang."

"Good!" Rebecca bursts out, failing completely at mirroring Greg's indifference. "Good, I'm very glad that you've found a mating partner." She can't even make herself believe that.

"Why do you care about my mating choices?" Greg says, eyes narrowing suspiciously. 

"I don't! I don't care! And I think I've shown that consistently." She realizes she's been turning the hard drive over and over in her hands, and she practically flings it at him because then he'll finally have his excuse to leave. "Here you go. Here's the- here's the hard drive. Oh, and, uh, tell Heather not to open the folder that says Taxes. If she's looking for porn, there's a folder that says Porn."

Greg gives her a thin-lipped, extremely fake smile. "Got it. Lovely. Thank you so much."

"Yeah," she manages to say. She was so upset to see him, but now that's he's leaving, she finds that she doesn't want to him to go. "They're the good kind!" she calls after him, nonsensically. "With plots! That's why the hard drive is so big." He disappears onto the Davises' patio without so much as a glance back, and she buries her face in her hands. Has she screwed up this do-over already? Should she chase after him? It's not like she'll get another shot at this day, according to the tiny set of rules that Dr. Dream Ghost Akopian bothered to share with her.

She can't do anything about it right now. Even though that client meeting isn't until the late afternoon, she'll have to spend all day refreshing her memory on what their case is even about. Rebecca ended up kind of hating being a lawyer, but it's the sort of job she could always immerse herself in when she needed to get away from her own problems, and some good old fashioned escapism is exactly what she needs at the moment.

"You know, if today is supposed to be about Greg, this is a weird-ass choice, Dream Ghost," she mutters as she reaches into her purse to dig out her keys.

Right on cue, her phone screen lights up with another withheld number text: _Don't think about it too hard._

"Just once it would be great to get a message from you that isn't cryptic garbage," she shoots back, dropping her phone unceremoniously back into her purse.

The entire morning at Whitefeather is completely uneventful, which does nothing at all to help Rebecca figure out what the hell she's supposed to be doing today. It also doesn't help that she's basically sequestered herself in her office, poring over all her files about this afternoon's case. And on top of _that,_ Paula is mysteriously absent. Rebecca looks back through their text history, trying to figure out what's going on, but either Paula told her about it in person or never told her about it at all. Or, Rebecca thinks with a wince, Paula told her about it and Rebecca was too self-absorbed to even begin committing it to memory.

Paula finally comes into the office right around noon, and they spend the whole lunch hour chatting about Josh, and the youth camp, and how Josh reacted to teen-Rebecca's letter, and the exact meaning of Josh kissing Rebecca on the cheek. Thank god that the Paula of a year and a half ago was completely obsessed with Rebecca and Josh's love story, because now Rebecca has all the context she could possibly need. Unfortunately, Paula can't help her with whatever it is Rebecca is supposed to do next.

She heads down to Cup of Boba just before three o'clock, because all the thinking about her impending meeting plus all the thinking about dream ghost shenanigans is making her head hurt. She orders the most caffeinated coffee on the menu and hunkers down at a table with her notes, practicing her presentation aloud. "'The plaintiff in the case is entitled to collect back rent on the property and in addition, the defendant is liable for court costs and interest accrued in the period of June 2013.'"

Someone sneaks up behind her and covers her eyes, and she panics for a second until the person begins to speak. "Also the plaintiff wants a back massage and a smoothie," Josh teases, and Rebecca giggles, buoyed by her own refreshed memories.

Josh moves his hands away from her face, and she's surprised by how much she wants him to touch her again, even in some other stupid not-sexy way. "Oh my god, you're so funny," she laughs, smiling so wide it makes her face hurt a little bit. _I love you,_ she hears herself say in her head, and oh no, did she really say that the first time? "How are you?" she says instead, reaching out and brushing her hand against his shoulder because she can't help herself.

"Good," Josh says, smiling right back at her. It's not quite glitter exploding inside her, but she does feel different, like being near Josh's effervescent cheerfulness has transported her to a separate plane of existence. "You know, I keep thinking about camp and just how much fun we had."

Rebecca knows he means the youth camp, but she can't help superimposing that memory on top of her own most recent one, of the two of them sitting on the floor of her — no, their — house, roasting marshmallows. "Yeah, me too. That campfire was so nice." A camp stove isn't quite a campfire, but she definitely means both.

There's a long pause, but it doesn't feel awkward at all. It feels... comfortable. Josh Chan has done some truly horrible things to Rebecca, at least in her own memory, but when it's good between them she feels deeply at ease in his presence. When it seems like Josh isn't going to pick up the conversational thread, she steps in, motioning at his karate gi. "So do you have like, a... a recital today?"

"Nah, just regular class," Josh replies, unfazed by her continued ignorance of karate terminology. "Hey, do you know what time it is?"

"Yeah, uh, let's see..." Rebecca scrambles for her phone. "It is 3:08."

"Thanks. I left my phone at home," Josh says, and Rebecca feels as though the ground has dropped out from beneath her. He keeps talking, but she doesn't hear any of it; instead his voice echoes in her head, like a CD with a scratch in it. _I left my phone at home._

She sees herself in the conference room, sending that ridiculous text message to Josh when she meant to send it to Paula. Sees herself rushing to Josh's apartment, breaking in, so she can delete the text before he sees it. Sees herself lying to Josh when he catches her, making up that ridiculous story about her own apartment being broken into just so she has a flimsy excuse for her presence. Sees herself calling Paula and asking her to fabricate a crime scene. Sees herself lying to Josh again when he realizes Rebecca's story doesn't add up. Sees Josh walking out on her.

"Becks?" Josh is saying, waving a hand in front of her face. "You okay? I gotta go."

Rebecca blinks several times, startling herself back to reality. "Oh!" she says, her mind still racing, spiraling with revulsion and shame at her own past actions. Future actions. Future not-actions, maybe. "Bye!"

"Sorry! Bye!" Josh steps closer to pull her into a hug, which helps and hurts in equal measure. Rebecca hugs him back, clinging just a little bit before he finally pulls away and starts to leave.

He's just about to exit the seating area when Rebecca jumps to her feet and runs after him. "Hey, Josh? Josh! Hold on a second."

Josh stops and looks back at her; she's probably going to make him late for class, but it doesn't seem to bother him if the smile on his face is anything to go by. "What's up?"

"Um, do you want to, like, hang out later? Or something? After your class?" She bites the inside of her cheek, nervous, certain she's overstepped. After all, this Josh is still with Valencia, and this Valencia still hates Rebecca. But Valencia wasn't at Josh's apartment when she broke in, so maybe that will give Rebecca enough time to do... whatever it is she thinks she's doing. It feels like cheating, to use this future knowledge to concoct some kind of half-formed scheme, but what are her other options? Send the terrible text? Do nothing at all?

"Uh, let me check," Josh says, starting to reach into his bag before stopping. "Oh, duh, I can't check. I don't have my phone." He scrunches up his nose, thinking, while Rebecca holds her breath. She doesn't have a backup plan. She barely had this plan. "Yeah, that's probably okay? Like, dinner or something?"

"You should come over! To my place!" Rebecca blurts out before she can think better of it. A neutral location would be better, easier to explain away to Valencia, but she also doesn't really want to do this in public. Whatever it is. "I have this presentation but I should be done by the time you're finished with class... does that work?"

"I mean, I should go home and shower first. And get my phone. So I'll text you?" Josh gives her a hopeful half-smile, and Rebecca's heart shatters because it's finally hit her, all at once, what she needs to do tonight.

 _God, I can't wait until we're finally together and I can stop lying and tell him I love him and moved here for him,_ she had written in that errant text message. She'd been so mortified, so adamant that he couldn't find out unless it was absolutely perfect, on her own terms. But when she had finally told him, after they'd hooked up after Jayma's wedding, it had backfired so completely that she'd decided to gaslight him instead. Genuinely what the fuck was wrong with her? What the fuck is still wrong with her, probably?

"Yeah," Rebecca manages to say, forcing a smile onto her face. "Yeah, that sounds great."

She does the presentation completely on auto-pilot, which is easy enough after all the studying up she's done today. She actually gets to see it through to the end this time instead of bolting out to do some minor criminal acts, which is a novelty. Afterwards, she figures it's only fair to keep Paula in the loop, so she motions her towards her office and closes them both in.

"So," Rebecca says, leaning back against the door, "I saw Josh earlier."

"What?!" Paula squeals. She scampers forward and grabs hold of both of Rebecca's hands, ecstatic. "And you didn't tell me?"

Obviously not, Rebecca thinks, because that's what screwed everything up the first time. "I'm telling you now! And I'm also telling you that I'm gonna tell. Him. Everything. Tonight."

"Oh my god, what?" Paula drops Rebecca's hands, looking at her with concern. Rebecca feels her face get hot; she had been so certain that Paula would be supportive. "Cookie, are you sure? Things are going so well right now!"

Rebecca wishes she could explain everything to Paula, about how her web of lies and deceit did eventually snare Josh Chan but she couldn't keep him and it had devastated her, thrown her into the bottom of a pit that she only barely managed to pull herself out of alive. Even worse, she can't be sure that being honest with Josh will be the right choice either, because being able to predict the consequences of her actions has never been one of Rebecca's strong suits. But she's been given the chance to try this, and she has to try.

"I'm sure, Paula," Rebecca says, and it's not until the words leave her mouth that she realizes how much she believes them. "I'm really, really sure."

Paula lets out a slow breath, then rests both her hands on Rebecca's shoulders. "Then you got this."

By the time Rebecca gets back to her apartment, she still hasn't received a text from Josh. She tries not to panic, because while she does know roughly how long Josh takes in the shower and exactly how long it takes to drive from Josh's place to hers, she has no idea how long the average karate class is. She paces around her apartment, stopping erratically to fluff pillows or straighten her book stacks or whatever other inane task pops into her mind.

By the time Josh finally texts that he's on his way over, there's nothing left for Rebecca to aimlessly tidy, so she perches on the edge of her couch and stares blankly at her phone. She half expects Josh's typing dots to pop back up, for him to tell her no, he can't come over after all, something else far more important has come up, but they never do. And then, after the exact amount of time that Rebecca had expected, there's a knock on the door.

"You got this," Rebecca mutters to herself. "Face your damn fears."

Even in a t-shirt and hoodie, Josh manages to look incredible. Then he smiles, and Rebecca feels something inside her wrap around her heart and squeeze. "Hey," she says, breathless, like she just took a quick run around the block. She kind of does feel like that, emotionally. There's a too-long pause as she stands, transfixed, before she shakes herself free. "God, um, come in! Can I get you anything? A drink? I'm going to have a drink if you want a drink." She's babbling, she knows, and alcohol definitely won't help the situation, but she needs something she can hold in her hands or else she'll start fidgeting and she does not want to have to explain to Josh why her cuticles are spontaneously bleeding.

"Uh, sure," Josh says, trailing her into the kitchen. Rebecca uncorks a bottle of white wine, grabs two glasses, and drops three ice cubes into one of them before starting to pour. "Aww, how'd you know I like ice in mine?"

Rebecca freezes. She knows because he'd asked for it last time, of course, but there's no reason she should know that now. Her wine glass overfills and starts dripping on the counter before she realizes what she's doing and starts pouring in Josh's glass instead. "Well, uh, you're hot. I mean, you look hot. Temperature-wise. So I thought..." She practically slams the bottle back on the counter and passes Josh his glass.

"Good guess," he says, raising the glass in a mock toast. Rebecca waits until Josh has left to sit on the couch, then leans over her glass and slurps out the top half-inch of liquid before heading over to join him. When she sits, she angles her body towards him, so their knees just barely touch; she cradles her wine glass gingerly between both her palms, one pinky finger tapping an uneven rhythm against the side.

"So," she says.

"So," Josh echoes.

Great start. Rebecca Bunch, knocking it out of the park, as per usual. She knows she's stalling, because the thing she intends to do has the potential to go so disastrously wrong and she doesn't know how she'll react when it does. She wishes this were a Groundhog Day scenario, where she could just keep trying over and over again until she figures out the exact series of events that will make Josh Chan fall head over heels for her and then they can spontaneously buy a house together. Which strikes Rebecca as weird, now that she thinks of it, because Andie MacDowell had only known Bill Murray for like, a day and a half? Not that Rebecca can really throw stones. Which is not a great metaphor, currently.

"Listen," she says abruptly, leaning forward and sloshing wine over the the edge of her overfull glass, "I have to tell you something. A whole bunch of things, actually. And some of it is really not great but I need you to let me say all of it before you respond, okay?" Her knee is pressed even more firmly against his, a solid pressure that's the only thing keeping her grounded.

"O- okay," Josh replies.

Rebecca takes a deep breath, then lets it out slowly. She finds she can't meet his eyes, so she starts talking to her wine glass instead. "So, first of all, that day you saw me in New York was one of the worst days of my life. Not _the_ worst. There's a lot of candidates for that. Well, maybe fewer than I'm thinking, because some of them haven't... um, nevermind. But it was really really bad, is my point." She glances up at him, sees he's watching her with his brow slightly furrowed, and looks back down at her wine. "But then I saw you. And it was like my whole world lit up. You talked about West Covina and how everyone was happy and I thought, that's what I want to be. I hadn't been happy, _really_ happy, since Camp Canyon Grove. But it wasn't..." Rebecca trails off because it's making her heart hurt, being honest like this. Despite her recent strides in that area, honesty is still not a feeling she's accustomed to, in general. "On the beach trip, I told everyone I was in love with West Covina. And, I don't know, maybe that's true now too. But I'm actually... it was actually about you."

She glances up at Josh again, and it's obvious he wants to say something, but she shakes her head furiously. She's not ready to hear his response yet. Frankly, she might never be ready to hear his response. "There's still a lot more, okay?"

So she tells him. She tells him about how she spent the first few days in West Covina desperately trying to get in touch with him. About how devastated she was when she found out he had a girlfriend. About how she threw a party as an excuse to spend time with him. About how she'd schemed to get invited to Thanksgiving with his family. About how depressed she was when he and Valencia moved in together. "And I just want you to know," she says, speaking rapidly now, "that this doesn't have anything to do with Valencia. I know how it seems, like it's some catty woman rivalry, but the truth is that she's totally right about me. One hundred percent justified. And I would not blame you even one bit if you walked out of here tonight after I'm done and went back to her and never spoke to me again. Because she is a catch and so are you." Rebecca's mouth is dry after all the talking she's done, but she sets her wine glass down on the table instead of taking a drink. Now that her hands are free, she reaches out to touch Josh's knee.

"Here's the honest truth, okay? You mean something to me in a way that no other person ever has. I first met you when I was young and impressionable and dramatic but also deeply sad and lonely, and then I was lucky enough meet you again when I needed you most. It's not even about romance. Maybe there's some other word I should use, because our society glorifies one specific meaning over all the others, but I don't know any other word to describe it." Josh is watching her so intently as she speaks, and she just can't take it anymore. So she closes her eyes before she finally says, "I love you, Josh Chan."

There's a long, long silence. Rebecca is terrified to open her eyes again, because she's imagined every possible look that could be on Josh's face and she doesn't want to find out which one is real.

"Can I talk yet?" Josh says softly.

Rebecca laughs in spite of herself. She cracks open one eyelid to see Josh, watching her with a mostly neutral expression, his head cocked slightly to one side like a curious dog. "Yeah," she says, her voice cracking on the consonant. "Yeah, you can talk."

"So," Josh begins, and then stops. He looks down at his knee, which still has Rebecca's hand resting on it; before she can get self-conscious and pull away, he puts his own hand on top of hers. "That was... a lot."

It was a lot. Rebecca, as a person, is a lot. She knows this better than anyone. Her brain is screaming at her that she's made a terrible mistake, that she's a horrible stupid bitch who ruins everything and now she's ruined this, she's ruined this for good in a completely different way from the last time. She resisted her emotions through her whole speech but they're cracking through the surface now, pulse racing and tears welling in her eyes. "I'm sorry," she somehow manages to say without completely losing control of herself.

"You kind of have a lot to be sorry for," Josh admits. "I always thought you were so innocent, but this... it's hard to process all of it."

Rebecca's fight or flight response kicks in, and a whole list of excuses are on the tip of her tongue in an instant. Josh shouldn't have led her on when they met in New York; Josh shouldn't have told her to lie to Valencia about summer camp; if Josh was _very attracted to her_ then he should've kept it to himself instead of making her feel like she had a chance with him. In Rebecca's memory, she once told him all these things and more, publicly attacking him because she thought that's what she needed to do to feel better about how he'd hurt her. But it didn't help then and it certainly won't help now. "I'm not asking you to understand, or to forgive me. You don't ever have to forgive me."

"But," Josh goes on, ducking his head so he can see more of her face, "I'm... not mad? It seems like I should be, right? D- do you want me to be mad?"

Does she? She doesn't know. Rebecca has no idea what she wanted out of this. What she does know is that, in her own present, Josh Chan has wormed his way back into her heart when she was once convinced that he was irrelevant. She also knows that, in her own present, the amount of bad blood and baggage between the two of them is so immense that sometimes it feels insurmountable. If she chooses this and they get to start over again from this moment, with all of her dirty laundry aired, maybe they can build something together that won't crash and burn. It almost feels too easy. Too pain-free. "Can you maybe yell at me a little bit?"

All at once, Josh's whole face softens. "I'm not gonna yell at you, Becks."

"Well, I feel like someone should be yelling at me," Rebecca mutters. "You could call Valencia. I'm sure she'd love to give me a verbal bitch slap right about now. Maybe even a real bitch slap."

"She does _really_ hate you," Josh says lightly, like it's no big deal, even though to Rebecca it's a very big deal in more ways than one, "ever since that whole thing where you kissed her at Spider's."

Right. She'd kind of conveniently left that whole incident out of her confessional laundry list. Then again, it's not as though Josh was the wronged party in that particular scenario. Rebecca finally tugs her hand free from beneath Josh's so she can grab her wine glass off the table, because suddenly she kind of needs it. "So, uh, here's the thing about that," she says, raising the wine glass to her lips and holding it there, tapping her fingertips nervously against the side. "Um, basically, I wanted to be kissing you, but Valencia was there, so I couldn't kiss you, but Valencia is your girlfriend, so kissing her was _basically_ like kissing you, so..." She winces and tips some wine into her mouth because that's far preferable to allowing words to continue coming out of it.

When she opens her eyes again, Josh is just staring at her. She feels exposed, like this is one of those dreams where she's just casually going about her day and suddenly she's completely naked, except this is somehow way more embarrassing.

"I could kiss you now," Josh says.

The wine feels thick in her throat when she swallows. "What?"

She watches the way Josh's gaze slips down to her lips and then back up again. "I'd really like to kiss you now, Rebecca."

Rebecca wants it. God, she wants it. Josh reaches out and brushes his fingers against her neck, thumb resting against her cheek, and she's transported back to the courtroom after she'd lost the water case, when he'd told her she was brave and then they'd kissed like they were catching fire, the perfect final scene for the romance movie that Rebecca desperately wanted her life to be. Here and now, Josh is leaning forward, tilting his head the way he always did when he was about to kiss her, and she can imagine exactly how it will happen: his nose will brush against hers just before their lips touch, and the pressure will be soft for just a moment before his mouth parts, and she'll grab hold of him so their bodies press together...

She shifts her wine glass into her left hand so she can reach up with her right, wrap her fingers around his hand, and slowly draw it away. "You shouldn't do that, Josh."

Josh blinks, startled. He's still half-leaning towards Rebecca, and she wants so badly to take it all back, to forget about being a good honest person with morals and kiss him the way she wants to, the way she wanted to back when she lived this day the first time, the way she used to in those brief shining moments when their relationship wasn't a disaster. She sets her wine glass back down on the table and scoots away from him on the couch, still angled towards him but at a safer distance.

"You have a girlfriend," Rebecca goes on. There's a sharpness in her tone, an edge that's almost like laughter except that this situation isn't even in the same zip code as something funny. "You have a girlfriend who lives with you and who thinks you're going to get married. She has so many plans and—" And she wasted those plans, Rebecca thinks. Valencia used her own wedding plans for Rebecca and Josh, and both of them wasted those plans in their own selfish ways. But that portion of the pity party is something Rebecca has to keep to herself. "You shouldn't kiss me right now, Josh," she says instead. "For now, I'd just really like for us to start over as friends. Can we do that?"

She can see the moment when the fairy tale magic dissipates from behind Josh's eyes, and he retreats as well, settling against the back of the couch. "Of course we can," he says, and Rebecca tries to ignore the way her heart thrums in her chest at the barest hint of hesitance in his tone.

"So," she says, forcing a smile onto her face, "dinner?"

It's a strange transition, from the heaviness of her confessions and the headiness of their almost-kiss to mundane tasks like ordering delivery and choosing something to watch on TV. Rebecca makes a hard case for the fondue place, and it turns out that their food is a lot better when it's hot and you're also not crying into it. They watch Diners Drive-Ins and Dives while they eat, arguing amicably about the palatability of some of the grosser items that Guy Fieri chooses to stuff into his gob, and even though there's definitely some residual anxiety pulsing under Rebecca's skin, she's relieved at how normal it feels. She can almost imagine how their relationship could move forward from here, because it's not so dissimilar to how she imagines their relationship will be now that Josh is living in her home as a friend and not a romantic partner.

Which is maybe why, when they've finished their fondue and are watching the credits roll over Guy Fieri's barbeque sauce-coated face, she doesn't want him to leave.

It's a terrible feeling. A foolish, weak, girly feeling. Rebecca is perfectly capable of sleeping alone, and has done so on many occasions. It must be something about this apartment, she decides, that's making her feel so scared and lonely and unsettled. Surely it's just some kind of residual effect of being abruptly sent back in time to the place she set on fire because she couldn't stop hallucinating her ex-boyfriends. A completely normal reaction to a completely normal event from her completely normal past. It doesn't have anything to do with Josh, or her feelings for Josh, or her feelings in general.

She knows that asking him to stay is an objectively terrible idea. Valencia might not have been at home when Rebecca broke into their apartment, but surely she'll be home at some point and she won't be happy to find that Josh isn't there. But there's only so much self-control Rebecca can exhibit in one night, and she's so tired. She turns off the TV and sets the remote down on the coffee table before turning to face Josh. "I'm going to ask something very selfish," she says, pressing one of Josh's hands between both of her own. "You can say no. It might actually be better, in the long run, if you say no. I really recommend you say no."

Josh rests his free hand on top of both of Rebecca's, encircling them. "What is it?"

"Stay with me?" she whispers, as if she's afraid to give voice to the single desire she's letting herself have tonight.

"Like, on the couch?" Josh asks. He glances around, probably looking for anything that would convert the couch into an acceptable sleeping location.

"No, I mean..." Now that she's saying it out loud, it's exponentially worse than it seemed in her head. "Upstairs. In my bed. Not like that!" she exclaims when she sees the way his eyes widen. "One hundred percent entirely platonic bed sharing, because I had a big emotional moment earlier and I'm still kind of messed up about it and I just need someone to be with me for a while. You don't even have to stay very long. You probably shouldn't stay very long. Or at all." She pulls her hands away from his and buries her face in them. "Ugh, this is terrible, I'm terrible..."

Gently, Josh peels Rebecca's hands away from her face. "You're not terrible. You're smart, and funny, and beautiful, and brave." He gives her a lopsided smile, the kind that never fails to make Rebecca's heart twist. "You're right. I probably shouldn't stay. But I will. For a little while."

The urge to kiss him surges up inside her again, but instead she playfully bats his hands away and stands up. "Call Valencia," she tells him, because if she's going to let herself indulge in this, then she needs to know it'll be on the up and up. "Tell her you're here, and when you'll be coming home. I have to go change anyway." Josh reaches into his pocket to pull out his phone and salute her with it, and she laughs and gives him a get on with it gesture before retreating up to her bedroom.

When she comes back downstairs, she finds that Josh has cleaned up all of their fondue mess and is rinsing out their wine glasses in the sink. "Aww, you didn't have to do that," she demures, even though Josh Chan being domestic is one hell of a turn on. "You're my guest!"

"I know I didn't have to," Josh replies, turning off the tap and placing both wine glasses into the dishwasher. His voice is lower, as close as Josh ever gets to sounding shy, when he speaks again. "But I wanted to, and you kind of didn't let me do the last thing I wanted to do, so..."

It's like Rebecca has suddenly forgotten how to breathe. Household chores instead of passionate make-outs on the couch is... definitely some kind of choice. "Oh," she says.

"So are you ready?" Josh asks, either oblivious to or politely ignoring her distress. "Those pajamas are cute. I like the little sushi on 'em."

"Th- thanks," Rebecca replies, suddenly self-conscious. She hadn't thought about it when she was changing, but now she remembers wearing them when Josh had shown up at her apartment post-courtroom kiss, and the last thing she needs right now is another reminder of how much she wants to kiss Josh. "So, um, upstairs?"

She's very aware of Josh's presence at her back as they head up to her bedroom. She pats the edge of the bed as she walks past it, and he sits, perched on the edge, not entirely sure what to do as she rounds to the other side and climbs under the covers.

"Uh, should I...?" Josh lifts up the corner of the comforter experimentally.

"No!" Rebecca nearly shrieks. This is already a super messed up thing that she's asking him to do, but him getting completely into bed with her is definitely crossing a line. "No," she says again, forcing herself back into some semblance of calm, "just, um, lie down on top, I guess."

Josh swings his legs up and rests his back against her headboard while Rebecca curls on her side, facing away, her fingers gripping the edge of the comforter tightly enough that her knuckles go bloodless.

"Thanks," she says finally, after a long silence that she thinks should've been awkward, but wasn't at all. "I know this is weird..."

"I grew up with sisters, Becks," Josh interrupts. "We did stuff like this all the time."

It should sting that Josh compared her to a blood relative, but instead Rebecca just smiles. "That sounds so cute, little Jayma and Jastinity getting comforted by their tough guy brother."

Josh laughs. "There was some of that, I guess. But it went both ways. All ways. A Chan fam-bam cuddle puddle." Rebecca feels Josh shift slightly behind her, springs creaking as he moves. "I meant what I said, you know. After everything you said tonight... I really do think you're brave."

Rebecca doesn't say anything. She can't say anything, not with the way her emotions are clogging her throat. She turns her head slightly towards her pillow, pressing the side of her face into it, trying to hide herself away.

The bed wobbles as Josh moves again, and Rebecca only has a moment to wonder what's happening before she feels Josh's arm drape across her waist on top of the covers, his chest warm against her back, his breath against her neck. "And wanting to kiss you... I meant that too."

She squeezes her eyes shut, overwhelmed. She can't see him, couldn't see him even with her eyes open, but she can feel him all around her, clogging the rest of her senses. Her heart is racing, so she starts slowly counting in her head, timing her breathing and forcing it to slow. Every instinct in her body is begging her to roll over, to give him the kiss he wants and so much more, but she knows how wrong that would be. She should say something to him, at the very least, but she's said so much already that she can't seem to find the words.

It's so much simpler to pretend she's asleep. She can deal with feelings tomorrow. Maybe.


	4. when we're together i feel so grand

On the third day, there's no annoying noise. Rebecca comes awake slowly, her arms wrapped tightly around herself like she's trying to pretend she's still nestled safely in Josh's arms. She's not particularly surprised to find him gone; even if she hadn't known this was a morning from a completely separate part of her past, she would've been very upset if she'd woken and found that Josh had never gone home.

Even so, she finds that she aches a little, missing him.

She rolls over without opening her eyes and gropes at her nightstand until she finds her phone, squinting at it until the words come into focus. Unlike the previous two days, there's no ambiguity about Dr. Dream Ghost Akopian's choice this time. "Date With Greg! 12pm" her calendar push notification cheerfully reminds her, and she groans, shoves the phone under her pillow, and finally opens her eyes the rest of the way.

She's back in the apartment again, although it's significantly less decorated than it was yesterday. Well, not-yesterday. The day she experienced yesterday but is actually a few months after today. God. "This one doesn't make sense, Dream Ghost!" she yells into the mostly-empty void of her bedroom. "I haven't seen Greg in over a year except for when I sort of saw him yesterday except that wasn't yesterday and also it doesn't count. Plus he probably hates me and I don't even think about him anymore. In the present. Like, the time I came from. Obviously I'm thinking about him right now but only because _you're making me._ "

Her phone buzzes under the pillow, and she tugs it back out to see another text from the withheld number. It's only one word this time: _Liar._

"Oh, real mature," Rebecca mutters, leaving the phone behind as she rolls out of bed and onto her feet.

It's nice to not have to immediately get up, get dressed, and go pretend to be a lawyer, so Rebecca stays in the shower until her skin gets pruney, then sets out to make herself some kind of breakfast. Unfortunately, a quick glance in her fridge reminds her of her misguided attempt at veganism, so instead she throws on a t-shirt and sweatpants so she can go out and buy a half-dozen donuts. She manages to get through three before her stomach starts to protest, which makes zero sense for her body in the present but would make sense for her sugar-deprived body in the past; she considers attempting to consult Dr. Dream Ghost Akopian about the logistics of time travel before deciding that would be a monumental waste of time. It's not like DG Akopes has been particularly forthcoming about most of this situation so far.

She lies on her side on the couch watching cartoons, definitely not thinking about any mentally-recent couch-related activities with either Nathaniel or Josh, until she can't put off getting ready any longer. She knows, too, that she also can't keep putting off thinking about Greg, as much as she would like to. There's no reason to still be angry — in fact, there was never a reason to be angry in the first place — about how she was blindsided by his presence at her apartment on a day that should've been all about Josh. She's only reliving these days exactly as they happened before, save whatever changes she chooses to make herself, so it's not as though Greg was placed there through mystical dream ghost intervention. She can't even think about that, anyway, because it hasn't happened yet. Might not ever happen.

As she stares at herself in the mirror while she waits for the curling iron to heat up, she finally starts to consider the ultimatum tacked on to the end of the dream ghost's proposal: she gets to choose one of these days to change for real. Neither of the two days she's relived so far has gone perfectly, but she has to believe they're both improvements on how she handled herself the first time around. But choosing one? She has no idea. If anything, all that this has done is make the Josh-or-Nathaniel dilemma even more fraught and confusing.

Ugh. No. No more thinking about Josh or Nathaniel. Thinking about Josh was the reason it had taken so long for her to give Greg a fair shake in the first place. No matter how she feels about the situation, she owes Greg her full attention today.

Greg pulls up to the front of the apartment building five minutes before noon, and while Rebecca is physically ready, she's not at all ready mentally. He sends her a text to let her know he's arrived and Rebecca's throat immediately closes up. She's had enough panic attacks in her life to know what's happening, but wishes she could've gotten it out of the way earlier, maybe when she was aimlessly scrolling through Instagram on her phone and cringing about all the obviously Josh-bait pictures she'd posted. Why is this so much harder than it had been with Nathaniel and Josh? She stares at the ceiling, taking measured breaths through her nose until she feels like she has a handle on herself, and then walks out the front door before she can change her mind.

She's startled by the warmth in Greg's smile when he sees her. "You look amazing," he tells her as she gets into the car, and no matter how hard Rebecca searches for the sarcasm in his tone, either because she is dressed significantly down in comparison to their sojourn at Beans's party or because of her own complicated understanding of his feelings about her, she can't find it. She's spent the past year and a half thinking about all the awful, toxic parts of their relationship and somehow forgotten that, at some point, for some reason, he'd actually liked her. Been attracted to her, even.

"Thanks," she says, pretending to be slightly mystified by the seat belt so that she can avoid his eyes for a few more precious seconds. "So, where are we going?"

She knows exactly where they're going, of course. She hasn't eaten guacamole ever since. "It's a surpriiise," Greg says, wiggling his fingers at her for emphasis. "But it's still in West Covina, so don't get too excited."

The ride to the West Covina Taco Festival doesn't take too long, and they fill the time with idle chatter about inconsequential subjects. With every minute that passes, the tightness in Rebecca's chest loosens, bit by bit; by the time they reach the festival grounds, she feels almost at ease. "So, Gregory," she says as they stroll between the stalls, letting a smile play the corner of her lips, "we are on a date."

"Yes, we are," Greg replies affably.

With a start, Rebecca realizes that she can't remember the last time she was on a proper first date. She should've gone on that date with Jason, back in the present, but he'd last-minute cancelled, which Rebecca is trying very hard to not harbor resentment about. There must have been something with Nathaniel, surely, in the brief period when they'd actually officially quote-unquote dated, but she'd already known Nathaniel and, if she's honest, that relationship had been less about going on dates and more about having copious amounts of sex. Josh had been the same way, a person she'd known for long enough that the normal first date rules didn't apply. So was her last first date... this exact date?

Rebecca stops in her tracks; Greg takes another few steps before realizing Rebecca is no longer beside him, then doubles back. "Something wrong?"

"I- I'm sorry," Rebecca says. "I'm just... it has been a _really_ long time since I've been on a date."

"I don't think they've changed it," Greg replies, bumping his shoulder lightly against hers. "At least, I hope they haven't changed it? I might not have the most updated version of the date handbook." He mimes taking a book out of his back pocket and flips through the imaginary pages.

Rebecca laughs, pretending to peer over at the invisible book. "Aww, men get a handbook? That is both disgusting _and_ unfair."

"Patriarchy at its finest." Greg tosses his fake book over his shoulder, then gives Rebecca a sardonic sideways smile. "But who needs rules and regulations? Fuck 'em. Let's carve our own, taco-shaped path. Where do you want to start?"

The smell of meat cooking is making Rebecca's mouth water, which lends more credence to her consciousness-teleported-into-previous-body theory of time travel. Impulsively, she grabs hold of Greg's hand and prances over to the nearest pork-based taco stall.

"What happened to being a vegan?" Greg stage-whispers to her as she practically throws her money at the poor man behind the table.

She remembers how this went last time, with the cauliflower tacos she had pretended to love, and can't help but grin as she raises the taco to her lips. "I decided it was silly to fight my base urges."

The expression on Greg's face belongs in a museum. "You sure you didn't read that date handbook?"

They stroll through the festival for an hour or so, eating a truly obscene number of tacos and talking casually. Some of the topics are the same, like the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire and favorite presidents, and others are different, like Kurt Vonnegut and favorite documentaries. Somehow, the conversation swings its way around to family, and all at once Rebecca's brain screeches to a halt.

It's bad enough that she spent the whole morning trying to not think about Nathaniel and Josh. She absolutely positively _cannot_ think about Marco.

"He used to own a restaurant," Greg is saying, blissfully unaware of the complete meltdown Rebecca is having in her head, "but we had to close it years ago. Recession, plus that's when his health started getting bad..."

Rebecca immediately pictures the oxygen tank next to the bed where she'd had rock bottom pity sex with Marco fucking Serrano and oh god she can't do this. She needs to change the subject immediately. "Huh, wild, that's fascinating, how about your mom though? Any wild and crazy mom facts?"

Greg's expression sours. "I don't like to talk about my mom."

"Great!" Rebecca chirps brightly. "Another great thing we have in common. Same favorite fire, same physical and/or emotional abandonment from a parental figure. Did yours ditch you in front of your friends right before the pay-per-view Room Temperature concert too?"

"God, no," Greg says, looking at her sidelong with a combination of horror and pity. "No, I was like, five years old. I barely remember what it was like to have her around. Which is fine, since I'm sure living with her would've been an absolute nightmare." His hand, which had been swinging freely next to hers for the entire day, suddenly grabs hold and laces their fingers together, companions in childhood trauma. "So, your... mom? Dad?"

"Dad," Rebecca replies. She squeezes Greg's hand, and it feels like the warmth from his body is seeping into her, traveling up the length of her arm and into her chest, twining around her heart. "Can I tell you something stupid?"

"More stupid than Rutherford B. Hayes?"

"Oh my god, shut up, Mister James K. Polk," she laughs, tugging on his arm. "So, um, every year after my dad left, on his birthday I- I'd send him like, a handmade card with these terrible, like, teeeerrible stick-figure drawings and a ton of glitter. And every year, I would never hear back." She presses her lips together, thinking about how long it's been since she last saw Greg in that airport, the escalator carrying away from her and out of her life. With Silas, she had tried and tried and kept trying, no matter how hopeless it had seemed. But with Greg, she hadn't tried at all. Would things have been different, if she'd sent Greg a birthday card filled with glitter?

"Your dad's an idiot," Greg says.

Must be genetic, Rebecca thinks. "I mean, to be fair, glitter gets everywhere."

"Well, it sounded like he was a crappy father," Greg continues.

"And yours sounds like a crappy mother," Rebecca cuts in, keeping Greg from leaning into the jokes she remembers from the last time. She doesn't want comfort; she wants commiseration. She wants to focus on the things she and Greg have in common so that she can stop thinking about all the ways she messed everything up between them the first time.

"Cheers to broken households!" Greg holds up his red plastic cup of horchata, and Rebecca does the same so they can clink them together. Then he nods at the cordoned off dance area in front of them. "You wanna?"

The last time Rebecca wanted to dance with Greg, he was falling over drunk at Jayma's wedding. That rejection still stings, too. But she can't keep thinking about that, about all these things that could only happen in this moment's future. She lets him lead her into the crowd, and they do the world's whitest dance to Cielito Lindo, and for a moment there's only this, only his hand brushing her waist and the promise of something between them that might, for once, not go completely pear-shaped. Rebecca feels like a fool, because it's so easy to remember now why she'd liked him. Why she still likes him, despite everything.

"Okay, everybody," the announcer says over the loudspeaker after the song draws to a close, "the final round of the guacamole contest will begin in one minute in the gazebo!"

The very idea of guacamole makes Rebecca's stomach turn. She tries to keep her reaction off her face, but Greg manages to pick on her discomfort anyway. "What, not a guac fan?"

"I had a regrettable guacamole-related experience a couple years ago," Rebecca says truthfully.

She can tell from Greg's expression that he very much does not want details, which suits Rebecca just fine. "Well, if you don't want to go to that, we could go... someplace else."

This is it. This, more than any other moment that came before or after, is where Rebecca well and truly fucked up. So, with zero hesitation, not even a hint of doubt, she smiles and says, "Maybe my place?"

The air feels tense when they get back in the car. Rebecca tries to re-break the ice by having Greg rate each of the various tacos they tried on a scale of 1 to 10, but they discover quickly that, when it came down to it, most of the tacos were pretty much the exact same. The ride home seems longer than the ride there, a single sustained note in an uncomfortable key. Rebecca itches to turn the radio on, but she remembers that Greg isn't much of a music-while-driving type of guy, so instead she drums silently against her thigh while staring out the window. She doesn't know how he stands it, being in the quiet with his own thoughts like this. Without some fluffy pop song drowning it out, she can't keep herself from remembering the last time she made this drive, in the passenger seat of a stranger's car.

She's still wrapped up in her own head when they arrive at the apartment, which is why she doesn't immediately process the implications of Greg asking if she wants a drink as soon as they're both inside. It's not until she sees him head straight for her liquor cabinet that the alarm bells start ringing.

Greg being an alcoholic was never something that pinged on Rebecca's radar until she'd peered through the window and seen him in the AA meeting. Even his behavior vis-a-vis drinking at Jayma's wedding hadn't struck her as odd at the time, although in retrospect it definitely was. She'd spent some time after Greg's departure framing and reframing all of their interactions through a 20/20 hindsight lens, a did-he-or-didn't-he mental spreadsheet with all the data points dutifully filled in and color coded like the Homeland Security Advisory System. It wasn't fair, she thinks now, to reconsider him in this way, as though all of his problems and their problems together could've been solved simply by subtracting alcohol from the equation. God knows he could do the same thing with any number of her DSM-specified BPD criteria; for all she knows, maybe he has, even if he doesn't know the significance of it.

The truth is that she barely knows who Greg is without his vice, just like he never knew who she was without hers.

It only takes a little rummaging before Greg finds a half-empty bottle of tequila, which must have been left over from Rebecca's party. Would it be too much if she slapped the bottle out of his hand, like some aggrieved wife in a Lifetime movie boldly declaring no, she won't let him keep destroying himself like this? She shouldn't even know. Does _he_ even know? Telling him he's an alcoholic right to his face has the potential to be a worse first date ruiner than sneaking home to fuck some rando guacamole vegan.

Well, okay, maybe not.

"Wait!" she blurts out a little too sharply, then tamps down the awkward laugh that tries to bubble up from her throat. "I mean, I'm way too full for drinking. Aren't you full? We ate like five million tacos. Tequila would not sit well with that."

"Pretty sure that's exactly why tequila was invented," Greg replies, arching an eyebrow at her. "One of the many uses of alcohol: helping you forget all your food-related regrets."

She should laugh, she thinks. He's trying to make a joke. But it's not funny, not in this weird limbo between past and present tense. He doesn't seem to notice either way as he heads into her kitchen, tequila still in hand, presumably looking for glasses.

"I think the meth lady peed in that bottle!" Rebecca shrieks, then immediately crams her knuckle into her mouth and bites down hard, completely mortified. That's the best lie she can come up with? She's so out of practice.

Greg flings the bottle towards the counter, where it slides a few inches before coming to a stop just before it might've toppled over into the sink. He whirls towards Rebecca, eyebrows shooting up his forehead. "Why would you keep that?!"

"I didn't know I did!" Rebecca squeaks back, knuckle still mostway between her teeth, as though leaving her hand there will somehow prevent more stupid nonsense from falling from her mouth without her consent. She squeezes her eyes shut for a moment, trying to calm down but only allowing herself one breath to do it. Definitely not how they practiced it in group. "Can we just, I dunno, have a chill hang? Without the use of mind-altering substances?"

She watches the way Greg's forehead creases, as though the idea of being alone with Rebecca in her apartment without alcohol to grease the gears is unfathomable. Honestly, she can't particularly blame him.

Then he gestures with one hand to the sink. "Would a glass of water be too wild and crazy for you?"

Joke! Joke! Tell a joke! "If this were New York City, then definitely yes. Tap water is their hallucinogen of choice." She scurries over to join Greg at the cabinet, lightly batting his hand aside so she can extract two tall glasses. "Which is why I have a Brita pitcher."

She doesn't realize she's holding her breath until his chuckle makes her exhale all in a rush. She goes to the fridge and starts to fill the glasses from the aforementioned Brita pitcher, grateful for an excuse to not have to look at Greg while she tries to rearrange the muscles of her face. "Must be a hell of a filter in that thing," Greg quips, awkwardly leaning back against the counter, and god, why did Rebecca think this was a good idea?

This, more than either of the other days she's relived so far, has a distinct feeling of unfairness. When they did this the first time, they had been practically strangers; Greg had been smitten and Rebecca had been amenable and they'd gone on a first date with all the regular first date things, up until Rebecca unwittingly let her personality disorder take the reins. But now, in first date take two, Rebecca has an entire library of Greg-related minutiae filed away in a dusty corner of her mind, while Greg is still at square one. Even worse, almost every interaction the two of them had before this date involved Rebecca being an unfathomably awful person. Why is he even here? By all accounts, he should loathe her.

Abruptly, Rebecca sets down the pitcher after only filling one glass halfway. "Hey," she says, turning towards Greg and tucking her hands behind her back. "I'm sorry."

Greg blinks owlishly at her. "What?"

"I just," she starts, then realizes that, for some reason, she'd been about to spill the beans, to tell him that this whole thing is a magical do-over granted by a dream ghost and that they might not get to keep this moment but if she decides he's the one then she'll do everything in her power to keep it from being the same beautiful heart-stopping breathtaking life-changing shit show that it was the first time. But that's stupid. She can't say that because he would never believe her. Why would he ever believe her? She barely believes it herself.

So instead of saying anything, she steps forward, gripping the edge of the counter on either side of his hips, boxing him in. "I don't think water drinking was the primary activity you had in mind when you suggested coming back here."

She lets her gaze drift from his eyes, to his lips, to the bob of his throat as he swallows. "Not really, no."

It's so easy to press her body against him, to slot her leg between his, to stretch on her tiptoes until their lips are at the same level. It's been over a year since he left but every part of his body is still deeply familiar to her, like putting on an old sweatshirt that she thought she'd lost but found tucked in the back corner of her drawer. She hesitates for the barest moment and he takes the initiative, closing the gap so their mouths finally meet, warm and soft and still tasting of pork and cilantro. She squeezes her eyes shut and tries to keep from shuddering, not out of any excess of sexual desire but because she can feel his hesitance in the tautness of his body, in the way his hands haven't yet moved from the edge of the kitchen counter.

She breaks the kiss and pulls back to look into his eyes. "What's wrong?"

Greg presses his lips together, obviously deciding whether he should say what's actually on his mind. "It's not important," he says finally, and Rebecca's heart sinks for a split second before Greg suddenly moves, gripping her by the waist and spinning them both around so now she's pressed against the counter. She immediately understands what he's going for and hops up so she's sitting on the countertop; now that they're on a more even playing field, Greg surges forward again, cupping the back of her head with one hand while he kisses her with newfound intensity.

Even as she lets herself melt into it, wrapping her legs around his waist so she can pull his body closer, trailing her fingers into the soft hair at the nape of his neck, she knows that she can't let it keep going forward like this. Rebecca is a master of using her body as a means of deflection, so she's more than aware that what Greg is doing is exactly that. She thinks about how she treated him at Beans's party and wonders if this is some kind of overt revenge, but she has trouble believing that Greg is that petty. That sort of pettiness is reserved for despicable people like herself, or Nathaniel. It's hard to be objective and goal-oriented with Greg's tongue in her mouth, and she doesn't want to push him away because that will just cause him to retract completely like a turtle into its shell, and besides, it's not as though she doesn't like this. Greg isn't as good of a kisser as Nathaniel but she doesn't think that's a fair comparison, though she can't decide exactly why she thinks that. She needs to stop thinking about Nathaniel while Greg is kissing her, just as a general rule.

Eventually she does push him off, because the edge of the counter is cutting into the backs of her thighs and it's really starting to hurt. Instead of launching right back into questioning him, she hops off the counter and takes off her cardigan, hoping he takes it as shorthand for Don't Worry, Getting Naked And Horizontal Is Not Off The Table.

Apparently he gets the message loud and clear, because as soon as she's tossed the cardigan to the floor he's back on the offensive, sliding both hands up her neck and into her hair as he trails kisses from her mouth to her jaw to her earlobe. It's too much for Rebecca, all of a sudden; this isn't the same sort of lust that manifested between them during their three day sex marathon, but something else that feels, for the moment, entirely one-sided.

Almost entirely one-sided, she notes when she disengages herself from his mouth and has to suppress the wave of heat that flashes through her body.

She steps away from him and he trails right after her, drawn like a magnet; she thrusts out one arm to keep him at bay, the heel of her hand pressing into his shoulder. "We need to talk for a second," she says, though her voice comes out breathy, lacking the insistence the phrase had in her head.

Greg's smile is disarming. "We don't need to talk at all."

Rebecca blinks, swallows, blinks again. "What?"

She doesn't put up any resistance when he brushes her hand off his shoulder and closes the gap between them again. "We don't," he breathes into her ear before gently pulling her earlobe into his mouth. He continues on that path for a few moments, pressing open-mouthed kisses to the side of her neck, and Rebecca nearly forgets about her objections until he speaks again, barely a whisper. "None of this is real anyway."

This time she does shove him off, reeling backwards from him like her polarity has reversed. She has no idea how to process his statement. Has he somehow figured out the dream ghost thing through flashes of deja vu or something? He couldn't possibly have, right? "Wh- What's that supposed to mean?"

Instantly, Greg's body language completely shifts, his eyes tearing away from her and his arms crossing his chest, just like she'd known would happen. Turtling. "You know exactly what I mean, Rebecca." He unfolds one arm so he can gesture between the two of them. "This. Us. Not real. Because you won't be honest with me about anything. So I figured, okay, fine, that doesn't matter today. None of that matters today. I figured we could just go on a date and eat some tacos and maybe come back to your place afterwards and maybe hook up or maybe not. But you..." He waves his free hand at her again, as if that explains everything.

On one hand, she's glad that he didn't somehow figure out the dream ghost thing, because she'd explicitly decided to not tell him that and it would be pretty awkward to have that particular gut impulse be right. On the other hand, if this entire exercise has really been about honesty then she's going to be annoyed. Stupid dream ghost. "Just say it," she tells him. She's surprised how wounded her voice sounds in her own ears.

"What do you want me to say?" Greg shoots back. "That I know I'm just... just some dalliance to you, until the guy you really like gets his act together? That no matter what I do, I'm always going to come in second place to you?"

Rebecca feels her whole body go cold. The worst part is that he's right. Their entire history, which she remembers and he can only dream of, bears that out. Greg was only good enough for her when she thought she couldn't have Josh.

"I thought it would be fine," Greg says, his voice softer now. He looks away from her, down at the floor. "I thought I could just pretend with you for a while. I thought it would be okay, as long as it wasn't anything serious. But then today happened, and I..." His shoulders droop and he looks at her again, defeated. "I had a really good time."

"Me too," Rebecca manages to say. She doesn't know when she got close to tears, but they're clogging her throat and smothering her voice. "Would you believe me if I told you I wasn't faking it?"

Greg gives her a sad half-smile. "I bet you say that to all the guys."

Nonsensically, Rebecca feels herself smile back. "So what was this, then?" she asks, motioning between the two of them with one hand. "What did we think we were doing today? Why waste your time, if you didn't think it could go anywhere?"

He crosses the room and sinks onto the couch, a clear ploy for time while he formulates his response. Rebecca just waits, watching him without moving, as he leans back and stares at the ceiling. "I liked you," he finally says, soft, pained.

"Liked?" Rebecca asks. Her heart is pounding in her ears. "Past tense?"

"Maybe," Greg replies.

"'Maybe liked' or 'maybe past tense'?"

"Rebecca..."

There's something about the way he says her name that makes her move, closing the gap between them with hurried steps; there's something about the look on his face, just the slightest bit exasperated and the slightest bit amused, that makes her crawl into his lap and kiss him.

She's flipped the script again, taking back control. It's the type of kiss that Rebecca, who's never learned how to modulate her feelings of affection, truly excels in. She traces her hands along Greg's neck, pulling him forward into her embrace; he follows her lead, malleable beneath her palms. She thinks about kissing him at Home Base after she'd kicked Josh out of her apartment, like she was drowning and Greg was the only thing keeping her from being subsumed. He'd said the same thing to her that night as he had today, that he was tired of being second place, and she'd told him it wasn't about anything but him. She'd promised.

It hadn't been true then. She has no idea if it's true now. But she thinks, maybe, it could be true, if she lets it.

She settles her knees on either side of his hips and tugs her blouse off over her head, then dives back in to kiss him again. His lips part beneath hers and she can't help but think about how his mouth used to taste, and how she likes it better without the sour note of alcohol. One of his hands trails back through her hair, which she likes, but the other settles on her still-clothed hip, which is weird. She ignores that for now in favor of hooking her fingers under the hem of his shirt, only breaking their kiss for just long enough to pull it over his head and off. His hands go right back to where they'd been before, like an off-kilter 8-and-2 on the steering wheel, and that's what finally gives her pause.

"Hey," she breathes against the rough skin of his jaw, "you okay?"

His exhale ruffles the hair around her ear, making her shiver involuntarily. Pressed as close as she is, she can feel the muscles in his throat move as he swallows. "Yeah," he says, though he doesn't sound like he believes it.

It isn't until she presses her nose against his neck and feels the rabbit-quick pace of his heart that Rebecca realizes Greg is nervous. It's not an emotion she expected from him, the guy who, in her own memory, has fucked her on basically every surface in this apartment. Is it because they haven't known each other for nearly as long? Because of his own smothered self-loathing? Because he doesn't have alcohol to lower his inhibitions? Because he's thinking about the last time they did this, when she tried to give him a blowjob while crying in a bedroom at Beans's party?

The last possibility, at least, is something she can fix.

"Relax," she says, more breath than sound. She trails her fingertips down his chest, feather-soft, and smiles against his neck when he shivers. When she reaches his waist she presses her palm against the flat of his stomach, fingers teasing down and under the band of his jeans as she presses open-mouthed kisses to the curve of his shoulder.

She doesn't go any further than that, watching the way his eyes flutter shut as he arches into her touch. If he'd been remembering her awkward tearful foreplay before, she's pretty sure he's not thinking about it now.

"Yes?" she prompts, twisting her wrist so she can rub her thumb over the button of his jeans.

"Yes," Greg agrees.

Rebecca's brain has a penchant for being destructive and self-deprecating, but there are a few things that she knows she is very good at, and she's not ashamed at all to admit that sex is at or near the top of the list. Sure, she sort of fumbled her way through high school flings like every other awkward teenager on the planet, but once she was at Harvard she embraced her new identity as a sex-positive feminist with gusto. Among other things, that gusto manifested as meticulous study of technique. What's the point of even showing up for the test if you're not prepared to ace it? Even better, she has the advantage of having taken a crash course in everything Greg likes in bed, and these two things together are how she knows exactly how exquisite it will be when she recaptures his lips with hers as she slides her hand beneath the fabric of his boxers. Greg's whole body jerks like he's been shocked, and she retaliates by shifting her own body closer, pressing him back against the couch with her free hand as the other encircles his not-quite-but-definitely-getting-there erection.

"Rebecca," Greg murmurs against the press of her lips, his eyes pinching shut, and the thrill that courses through her is half arousal, half triumph.

She knows from experience she'll only be able to get Greg so far with friction alone, and since she's not the type to keep sex stuff in her living room without premeditation and has never been a fan of the old spit-in-the-hand maneuver, it's not long before she's disentangling herself from his wandering hands and kneeling on the floor in front of him. He lifts his hips off the couch obligingly when she tugs on his jeans so she can pull them down to puddle around his ankles, then passes her one of the couch cushions without her having to ask, which is weirdly erotic. His thighs are tense when she pushes them apart, and she keeps a tight grip on one as she leans in and gets right to work.

During their sex marathon Greg's body had always been ridiculously responsive, and she can sense that in him now but he's clearly holding back, every reaction passing through some kind of filter in his brain before it reaches his synapses. She doesn't want to keep thinking about the lack of alcohol in his system but she does, wishing that she could spontaneously develop telepathy and find out what he's really thinking but also not because she's not certain her ego could handle that right now. Instead she just focuses on the task literally at hand, loosely moving her fingers along the base as she sucks on the tip, curling her tongue deviously.

She's grateful that she learned to suppress her gag reflex back in college because his hips jolt when he hits the back of her throat, and then suddenly Greg's fingers are in her hair, gripping hard, pulling her up and off so he can crush their lips together, bruising. She doesn't know if it's because of Greg or if it's some kind of weird time travel brain chemistry thing, like the transitive property of getting fucked in another timeline, but suddenly she's ravenous, the dial on her sex drive turned up to eleven. Greg is trying to pull her back up onto the couch with him but she's grabbing at him too and finally she wins, pulling him off-balance just enough so that he tumbles onto the floor with her.

Then, to Rebecca's immense relief, Greg smiles. Laughs. Presses her down onto the floor to kiss her again.

"Condoms are upstairs," she manages to say between kisses as his hands hurriedly fumble with the button of her pants.

He pulls away from her for just long enough to kick his jeans off the rest of the way, then digs out his wallet and hastily tosses her a foil packet from inside.

"A man who comes prepared... such a turn on." She grins at him before ripping the wrapper open with her teeth, a move that's wholly unnecessary but dudes always find sexy for some reason. Greg is clearly no exception, because as soon as her mouth is unoccupied he's kissing her again, resuming his hasty removal of her pants while she rolls the condom onto him.

Based on the way he was manhandling her just a minute before, she thinks he'll be rough with her, which she definitely wouldn't have hated, but instead of pushing inside her he stops, his eyes searching her face as he just touches her instead, the pads of his fingers somehow managing to fire off every single one of those eight thousand nerve endings. She hadn't realized how worked up she'd gotten until he touched her, hot and slick, some kind of noise escaping from the back of her throat. Then he does push into her and she's completely lost to sensation, the heat inside of her ratcheting up and up and up as he slowly takes her apart. At some point the rhythm of his hand falters and she grabs hold of his wrist instead, pulling his hand up to her mouth and sucking on his slick fingers, and that's what does him in, his hips stuttering a halt as he comes inside her.

Her skin is still buzzing as he pulls out and lowers himself on top of her, damp forehead pressed to her chest, lips brushing over the fabric of the bra they'd never bothered to take off. "Hey," he says, his breath almost cool against her too-hot skin.

Rebecca's not sure what she expects Greg to do next. Maybe cuddle in and kiss her, loose and slow. Maybe get up and throw the condom out and drink some of that long-forgotten hallucinogen-free water. What she doesn't expect is his hand skimming between her thighs, rekindling the flames of her own — honestly, mostly forgotten — orgasm. Was it so obvious to him that she never got there? The guacamole vegan had seemed convinced. Or maybe Greg thinks he's going for round two, which she absolutely cannot complain about, not when his fingers are being so wicked, not when he's whispering absolute filth in her ear. She comes like a firecracker, white-hot, and sinks into the satisfaction of it for a long minute afterwards, eyes closed, content.

When she opens her eyes again, Greg is watching her, chin resting on the curve of her breast. "So," he says, the hint of a smile on his lips, "your floor is _really_ hard."

She laughs, mouth dry, breathless. "You wouldn't have liked the bed any better. Apparently it's like a prison cot."

"This is why I was angling for the couch." He wriggles away from her to deal with the condom situation, then gets to his feet and holds out a hand to help her up. She accepts gratefully, but finds that she's still wobbly on her feet and immediately sinks back down onto the couch. "Be right back," Greg says, leaning down to press a quick kiss to her hair before grabbing his discarded clothes and heading up the stairs, and that's when she hears the woodwinds trill in her head.

Rebecca forces herself to start moving, to gather up her own clothes and start to slowly get dressed, but her unwelcome realization is making her anxiety start creeping up her throat. She'd known right from the start that Dr. Dream Ghost Akopian was going to make her relive three days, but she hadn't expected the third to give her the same glitter-exploding feeling that she'd had for Nathaniel and Josh, which had started this whole thing in the first place. She feels trapped, pinned down by this impossible situation, this choice that she'd blithely agreed to and now somehow has to make.

She's not doing any better when Greg returns a few minutes later; she's managed to get her pants back on but not her shirt, and is sitting on the couch with her knees pulled up to her chin, counting out breaths. Rebecca looks away when she sees him, embarrassed to be caught, squeezing her eyes shut and silently wishing that the dream ghost rules will let her opt out of the rest of this day.

"Okay," Greg says, his voice sounding distant enough that Rebecca is pretty sure he stopped short in the middle of the room, "not really what a guy wants to come back to after sex."

If they'd gone back to Greg's house instead, then this would've been easy. She could've just disappeared, snuck away while he was in the bathroom, and then she could avoid this conversation and write this whole day off as a wash. She supposes, in the grand scheme of things, it wouldn't have much mattered if she _had_ decided to irrationally flee her own apartment if her intention was to throw this do-over into the garbage. Maybe the fact that she stayed is some kind of sign, even though she doesn't believe in those anymore.

She hadn't realized she was crying until she tries to look at him and finds that the image is blurred. "This isn't about you," she says, drawing a circle around her face with one hand. "I mean, not really. It sort of is but sort of isn't. It's mostly about me."

"D- do you want to talk about it?" Greg asks, sounding like he wants to do anything but.

"I wish you hadn't left," Rebecca says without thinking. She immediately snaps her mouth shut, biting down hard on her tongue, mortified. There it was, the elephant in her own figurative room, the hard truth she hasn't let herself so much as consider since the night she took the world's worst walk of shame and immediately fled to Scarsdale. But it's not relevant at all, not here and now on this day months before Greg will abandon her to go live his new perfect sober life without sparing her so much as a thought. She blinks the tears back and forces herself to smile, holding out her hand to him. "Sorry. Sometimes sex makes me stupid."

He doesn't look like he believes her, but he does finish crossing the room, taking her hand in his and settling next to her on the couch. "Didn't picture you as much of a cuddler."

"I love to cuddle," she says, tipping her body so she's leaning against him. His arm slides over her shoulders and she feels, if not better, at least slightly less unraveled. "I'm a great cuddler. I'm very soft."

They just sit like that for a while, Greg's hand idly rubbing over the bare skin of Rebecca's shoulder, neither of them looking at each other. She doesn't have any reason to keep him here but she wants to, selfishly, because there's a one-in-three chance that she'll never see him again after this moment. This might be the closest they ever get to having a good relationship. This might be the closest they ever get to seeing eye to eye.

"You aren't a dalliance," she mumbles into the fabric of his shirt.

"It's okay," Greg replies. He sounds resigned to it. Maybe Rebecca wasn't the only one having a post-coital crisis.

"It's not," she insists. "I haven't been fair or even nice to you since the moment we met."

Greg is silent, the seconds stretching out like minutes. His hand is still moving on her arm, the pad of his thumb making slow circles on her bicep. She glances down to see that one of his socked feet is tapping against the floor, and she doesn't have to develop telepathy to know that he's wishing he didn't have to have this conversation while sober. "You were nice today," he finally says. "It was kind of confusing, actually."

"That's me," she says, staring at her own blurry reflection in the television, trying to ignore Greg's reflection next to hers, the smear of his cheek resting on her unfocused head. "Confusing and confused."

"I can stay," Greg says, the words coming out in a rush, like he's trying to say it before he realizes what a bad idea it is. Before he changes his mind, about staying and about her. "I'm pretty sure my dad is expecting me back, but I can call him, let him know—"

"It's fine." Rebecca pulls away, shrugging his arm off her shoulders, and turns to look at him. Greg looks like he's about to protest but she presses her fingers against his lips, keeping them shut. "Don't worry about me. I'll be okay." She lets her hand drop away and smiles, sardonic. Like he always does. "I don't think your dad's my biggest fan anyway."

"He's not a big fan of other humans, in general." Greg starts to get up but notices that his fingers are still intertwined with Rebecca's. They both just look at their own hands for a moment before Greg brings Rebecca's hand to his lips, kissing the fingers like Rebecca had to Valencia in the grocery store. "M'lady."

"Oh my god, shut up," she says, laughing, tugging her hand free and swatting at him without any malice.

"At least you're wearing a bra this time," Greg says, scooping her blouse off the floor and handing it to her. "I'll... see you? Text you?"

Rebecca feels like her heart is sinking, submerged, drowning. "Yeah," she says, balling up her shirt and burying her hands in it. "I'll see you."

Part of her expects the world to unravel as soon as the door closes behind him, the dream ghost fantasy ending now that its purpose is fulfilled, but she sits on the couch for one, five, ten minutes and realizes that it isn't going to happen. She pulls her shirt back on as she wanders into the kitchen like she's sleepwalking, and she almost takes the half-filled glass of water from the kitchen counter but ends up grabbing the tequila bottle instead and carrying it out to her patio. The irony of drinking away her sorrows is not lost on her but she does it anyway, one slow sip at a time, because she's been thirsty for an hour and she just wants to forget everything and it's entirely possible she won't have to deal with a hangover tomorrow. Probably. Maybe. She has no idea.

"Hey, neighbor," says Heather's voice, tentative, from the gate that separates Rebecca's space from the Davises'.

"Hey," Rebecca says, sounding less broken than she feels. She pats the seat of the chair opposite hers and Heather obediently pads over, perching on the edge like a gangly stoner bird.

"How's it going?" Heather asks. "Feeling any better?"

Rebecca is pretty sure that Heather is referring to something that happened before today, but she's tired of recontextualizing, of counting backwards through her memories to decipher what everyone else means when they talk to her. It's a lot easier to just apply the question to what's in front of her. "No? Yes? I don't know."

"That's rough," Heather says. As usual, Rebecca can't tell how much Heather means it.

The mostly-empty tequila bottle clunks as Rebecca sets it down on the concrete. "Have you ever had to make a decision, and you knew it would be a hard decision but when you really sat down with it, really crunched the numbers, you realized it was totally impossible because every choice was good for different reasons and you wished you could just pick all of them?"

Heather blinks. "Generally I try to avoid making decisions that I have to sit down and think about. Like, swiping left or right? No brainer. But put all those pictures in a grid and you can forget about it. I've got a vibrator. I'm liberated or whatever."

It hadn't hit her so much with Greg, because it had been so long since she'd seen him and her memories had transformed him into something that didn't entirely mesh with the reality, but Rebecca is struck by how different this Heather is from the Heather she knows now. A couple years of growth will do that to a person, she supposes. It's not like she's remotely similar to the Rebecca who first moved to West Covina. She tries to imagine how Heather-in-the-present, who's a regional manager and had someone else's kid and got married and owns a condo, might've answered the question differently. She probably would've just told Rebecca to get over herself. "Yeah, relying on the vibrator hasn't really been working out so hot."

"Gross." Heather stands back up, giving Rebecca an awkward pat on the shoulder. "Well, you'll figure it out. You're kind of a hot mess, but you're like, smart and stuff. Hang in there, kiddo."

"I'm older than you," Rebecca says to Heather's back, already disappearing back onto her own patio. "Like, significantly, at the moment," she adds under her breath.

She knows she should go back inside, should go upstairs and change into pajamas and go to sleep like it's any other ordinary day, but she's so bone tired from the combination of mental anguish and physical exertion that she just pulls her legs up to her chest and rests her head on her knees. It's a warm Southern Californian autumn night, and the alcohol in her bloodstream heats her from the inside, making her feel floaty and bereft. She thinks about falling asleep right here, except there's no romantic lead to show up and gently cover her with a blanket, and that's the whole problem reduced to a single bullet point.

Eventually she gives up, goes inside, goes to bed. She doesn't bother to change clothes after all, just curling into a ball under the covers and staring at the wall. This is the part, she thinks, where her brain should write a song, a flashy musical number about Greg and Josh and Nathaniel, composed of leitmotifs and reprises, but the melodies keep overlapping in her head and she just curls up tighter, squeezing her eyes shut, trying to think of nothing at all.


	5. but now there's no need for regret

Rebecca is startled awake by the escalating hum of the power whirring back to life in the lobby of the MountainTop building. She's curled in that uncomfortable chair, one leg tucked awkwardly beneath her, hugging the other and resting her cheek against her knee. Her neck aches from the angle when she straightens, and she rolls her head back and forth to no avail, scanning the room as her eyes readjust to the light.

She's alone.

Well, that would make sense. Dream ghost, right? This was all some elaborate dream, birthed by her busted brain to try and teach her a lesson, just like last time. The fact that she had only sort of put that lesson into practice was a separate and unrelated issue; it's one thing for your overactive imagination to attempt to teach you something and another entirely to put it into practice against the wishes of your own brain chemistry. She's almost annoyed at how easy it is to put the pieces together, because she's been noticing it all along: honesty about her attraction to Nathaniel, honesty with Josh about the reason she'd moved here, giving Greg a real honest chance. Honesty all around. Which is both ridiculous and frustrating, since she was under the impression she'd been making healthy strides — and a few important backpedals — in that area recently. "So, kind of redundant in the long run there, Dream Ghost," she mutters to herself, rubbing one fist against her eyes and pushing herself to her feet. Pretzels won't finish prepping themselves.

The wind rattles the doors in their hinges, and Dr. Dream Ghost Akopian's voice comes from behind Rebecca's shoulder. "So, which one do you choose?"

Rebecca shrieks, whirls on her heel, and tries to shove Dr. Akopian away, but of course her hands go straight through and she falls flat on her face. "Ow."

"You and Nathaniel definitely had chemistry," Dr. Dream Ghost Akopian is saying as Rebecca pulls herself into a sitting position on the floor. She glares at DG Akopes, annoyed that she isn't helping Rebecca up before she remembers, of course, duh, _dream ghost._ "The bed sharing was a cute touch with Josh. And you made some real progress with Greg, considering the circumstances. All very viable starting points."

"Sure," Rebecca says warily. She knows that this was the whole deal, this choice that's been percolating in the back of her mind for three days, but she kind of enjoyed the two minutes when she thought she wouldn't have to make it at all. "Um, before I decide, can I ask you a few questions? You didn't exactly give me a lot of specifics back at the beginning."

Dr. Dream Ghost Akopian, apparently tired of looking down at Rebecca, settles onto the floor with her, legs tucked beneath her skirt. "I suppose that's only fair."

Rebecca traces abstract shapes on the linoleum with the tip of her finger as she categorizes her thoughts. She doesn't look up when she asks, "What happens next?"

"How do you mean?"

"I mean," Rebecca says, puffing herself up to as full a height as she can while still cross-legged on the floor, "after I choose. The other days I tried poof out of existence, obviously. But do I just, like, pop back in on the day after and go forward from there?"

"That's right," Dr. Dream Ghost Akopian replies.

On one level, it's exactly what Rebecca wants to hear. It's what's she's longed to hear, every time she's made a terrible mistake and wished for a time machine so she could rewrite her actions out of existence. She thinks about a future where she never banged that guacamole vegan and instead opens her heart to Greg. She thinks about a future where she doesn't gun for Josh and Valencia's breakup and instead just tries to earnestly be his friend. She thinks about a future where she doesn't use her heartache to obfuscate her attraction to Nathaniel and instead the two of them grow into better people together. There's a part of her that aches for those futures, each and every one, because they sound so much less painful than the reality she's already put herself through.

But then she thinks about Heather, time-reverted to eternal student, saying that she doesn't like making decisions, and Rebecca knows better than to insist she's the protagonist.

"But then, what happens to everyone else?"

Dr. Dream Ghost Akopian tilts her head. "What do you mean?"

"So, like, let's say... Heather," Rebecca says. "As a totally random example. Like, if I hook up with Nathaniel instead of leaning in to my revenge fantasy, then yes obviously a bunch of awful stuff doesn't happen to _me,_ but also that's kind of how Heather and Hector started dating. So, that wouldn't happen?"

"I... suppose that's correct." Dr. Dream Ghost Akopian adjusts her shawl, her face carefully neutral.

"And Paula," Rebecca continues, unconsciously scooting a little closer. "If I never sent Josh that text, then I never asked her to throw that rock through my window, which was, weirdly, the event that helped her and Scott fix their marriage. That wouldn't happen either?"

"You are certainly listing major life events that may or may not occur."

"And Valencia!" Rebecca's really fired up now, gesturing animatedly with her hands. "If I date Greg right from the start, Valencia wouldn't break up with Josh! She'd never meet Beth! She'd never become an event planner!"

"There's also Darryl," Dr. Dream Ghost Akopian interjects.

Rebecca frowns, thinking for a moment. "Oh, you mean how if I don't get into that big dumb fight with Greg then I won't go through my I'm A Good Person kick and Darryl won't get custody of Madison? I mean, that was kind of underhanded on my part but—"

"No," Dr. Dream Ghost Akopian says, "I mean he won't have Hebecca."

The speeding train of Rebecca's thought derails completely, careening into a ditch and bursting into flames. "Who?" Rebecca says, entirely on reflex.

Dr. Dream Ghost Akopian sighs heavily. "His daughter? Made from your egg?"

Rebecca knows. She's not oblivious, or forgetful, or so self-absorbed that she doesn't actually know who Hebby is. She just... can't let herself think about it, because every time she does, she feels like her chest is caving in on itself. She's spent the past three days forced to reflect on her own actions, her own mistakes. She doesn't want to deal with this one, too. "Well," she says sullenly, looking down to pick some very interesting lint off her sweater, "that one's probably for the best."

She's been in therapy with the real Dr. Akopian for long enough that she can imagine the expression on the other woman's face. "If you say so."

"I mean, the other stuff is bad enough," Rebecca retorts, determined to get the discussion back on the rails. "But like, that's all fine, right? Because I'll know how it went the first time. I can play matchmaker for Heather and Hector, and make sure Paula and Scott don't get divorced, and, I don't know, have Valencia plan my wedding to... whoever."

"But Rebecca," Dr. Dream Ghost Akopian says, "you won't remember any of that."

Rebecca blinks. "I'm sorry, what?"

"Once you decide, you'll 'pop back in on the day after and go forward from there,'" Dr. Dream Ghost Akopian says, making quotes in the air with her fingers. "But you won't remember anything you did. That future won't exist anymore."

"That's not what you said!" Rebecca jabs a finger at Dr. Dream Ghost Akopian, which of course phases right through her therapy shawl. "'You'll have all your memories of what happened last time, and all your other memories up until the present day.' That was what you said."

"And it was true, while you were reliving those three days," Dr. Dream Ghost Akopian replies. Her gaze drifts to Rebecca's finger, still lodged in her ghost body; Rebecca glares at her but retracts her hand. "I never said anything about what happens after you choose."

Rebecca rolls her eyes so emphatically that it hurts her face a little bit. "And this is why you should get everything in writing before making a formal agreement. Rookie mistake, Bunch."

"I'm not sure how any of this is relevant," Dr. Dream Ghost Akopian snaps.

"Of course it's _relevant!_ " Rebecca laughs, just this side of hysterical. "You're the one who told me there's all kinds of love in my life. So, what, I'm supposed to sacrifice all the good things in my friends' lives just so I can _maybe_ not make the same mistakes with a guy of my choosing? Mistakes which, I might add, I won't even know about because I _won't remember what I did the first time?_ " The implications of the words she's just said slot dutifully into place as soon as they finish leaving her mouth, and Rebecca's abrupt understanding of the whole picture makes her instantly furious. "Oh my god. Oh my _god._ _That_ was the point you were trying to make?"

"What—"

"Oh my god!" Rebecca says again, throwing her hands in the air. "This is unbelievable. You really made me think it was all about the guys this time. This is the most roundabout way you could've possible taught me that my poor choices can have positive consequences. Super inefficient. You're really losing your touch, Dream Ghost."

"No!" Dr. Dream Ghost Akopian screams as though she'd just watched Rebecca walk into traffic. "Seriously? _Now_ is the time you decide to have morals?"

For a second, all Rebecca can do is stare. "Are you serious with this right now? What happened to 'I'm really just your mind working things through'?"

"You have made some unfortunate generalizations about my occupation, and my existence, and my interests." Dr. Dream Ghost Akopian adjusts her therapy shawl haughtily. "Of course there would've been easier ways to teach you that your poor choices have positive consequences. I didn't choose those ways because that wasn't the point of the exercise."

"Soooo," Rebecca says slowly, "what _was_ the point?"

"Girl, your life is a _mess,_ " Dr. Dream Ghost Akopian says, as if this is somehow new information to Rebecca. "You said it yourself: changing your past is something you dream about. Hence, dream ghost."

"So, wait, hold on a second," Rebecca says, waving a hand as though she can clear the absurdity out of the air. "You're telling me right now that none of this was bullshit. This was actually magic. This is some real-ass magic that can for real rewrite my whole life."

Dr. Dream Ghost Akopian shrugs, as though that answers anything at all.

Rebecca gestures exasperatedly. "Well, okay then, why stop at the guys? Why stop at West Covina? Why don't we roll it back to college, or childhood, or _the womb,_ because let's be clear here, Dream Ghost, that's where the problems really started. Just rewind that clock to when I ate my twin! Full do-over, this time with less emotional trauma and bad brain chemistry!"

"Now you're just being absurd," Dr. Dream Ghost Akopian says, punctuated with her own exaggerated eye roll.

"And _you're_ dodging the question!" Rebecca shoots back.

They're silent for a long stretch of seconds, glaring at each other, until finally Dr. Dream Ghost Akopian wilts like a flower. "I made a bet, okay?"

" _What?_ "

"With the other dream ghosts," Dr. Dream Ghost Akopian continues. She sounds like she's confessing to a crime, which Rebecca thinks is a fairly apt summary of events. "We bet money on which guy you'd choose. I chose Greg, of course, because that man is a dreamboat. Good on you for getting a piece of that."

Rebecca cringes. "Oh my god, please stop saying things like that while you look like my therapist."

There's a puff of smoke, and suddenly Dr. Akopian is gone and replaced with Gavin Johnson, complete with dapper suit and smarmy smile. "Is this any better?"

" _No,_ that is one thousand percent _worse_ and also somehow totally expected, you nasty horndog!" Rebecca scrubs her hands over her face in a futile attempt to erase the visual reminder of yet another dumb choice she made. "Change back. Change back right now. I'd much rather cope with Akopes being horny for Greg than your Frankie Valli-looking ass."

"Come on, Rebecca," the dream ghost says, thankfully sounding like Dr. Akopian again. "Isn't this what you wanted?"

Rebecca lets her hands drop away from her face and tilts her head back, staring blankly at the ceiling. It had been so seductive, when the dream ghost had pitched it to her. A chance to start over, to throw away her mistakes and finally live the love story she'd been dreaming of since she was a kid. But there's so much more at stake than her own happiness. Her own happiness isn't even something that's guaranteed. Her gaze drifts to the Rebetzel's sign and settles there, and it's like she's really seeing it for the first time.

Isn't she happy already? Or, at the very least, something approaching it? Is she really okay with throwing all of that away?

"Sorry, Doc," Rebecca says, "but I respectfully decline."

She expects the dream ghost to argue, like she did before, but Dr. Akopian just shrugs, a wistful smile on her borrowed face. "Well, it's not like you signed a contract or anything."

The ball of anxious energy in the pit of Rebecca's stomach fizzles out and disperses. "Hope this doesn't mess things up with the other dream ghosts," she says, reaching out to give Dr. Dream Ghost Akopian the approximation of a friendly nudge, which feels ultimately unsatisfying from her perspective but the dream ghost seems to appreciate.

Dr. Dream Ghost Akopian hums thoughtfully. "I mean, you could just pick one. As a hypothetical. Not legally binding."

"Eh, I'm gonna have to deal with it in my real life now anyway," Rebecca says, wrinkling her nose in distaste, not towards the guys in question, but the idea that she'll have to untangle her own feelings without the intervention of dream ghost maybe-magic. "Guess you'll all just have to wait for those results."

"We're really invested, you know," Dr. Dream Ghost Akopian says conspiratorially. Rebecca feels like she should find it patronizing, but it's almost kind of sweet in a weirdly invasive way. "The ship wars back at Dream Ghost HQ are _brutal._ "

"Reeeeeally." Rebecca grins impishly, scooting a little closer, her curiosity piqued. "Are we talking like, discussions around the water cooler, or is it more of an after-hours group chat sort of thing?"

Dr. Dream Ghost Akopian frowns, tilting her head. "Uh, Rebecca?"

"Is there like, a Reddit for dream ghosts? Something Tumblr-esque? Or is it more of an old school Usenet message board vibe?"

"Rebecca?"

"Oh my god, do you have _ship names_ for us? The portmanteau ones are cute but I've always liked the clever wordplay type, like—"

"Rebecca, wake up!"

Rebecca snorts and shoots bolt upright in the uncomfortable lobby chair, sleep-mussed hair obstructing her vision. She brushes it out of her eyes with her upsettingly damp arm to see Paula leaning over her, one hand on Rebecca's shoulder.

"You were out like a light, Cookie," Paula says, straightening and taking a step back so Rebecca can get her bearings. "You must've been exhausted to fall asleep in one of those things. I once sat in one for five minutes and had lower back pain for six weeks."

Rebecca's dream-memories of Greg and Josh and Nathaniel are swirling in her head, but suddenly all she can think of Paula in the conference room, thrilled at the prospect of using their collaborative scheming powers for good instead of evil. "Paula," Rebecca says urgently, her voice sleep-slurred, "'m sorry I didn't let you sue Josh Chan."

Paula flinches, confused. "What?"

"But 'm glad I asked you to throw that rock through my window," Rebecca goes on, rubbing her eyes with one hand while she reaches for Paula with the other.

"Ooookay, Aurora, let's get some caffeine in you," Paula says, gripping hard on Rebecca's arm so she can help her to her feet. Rebecca sways a little but Paula is right there, slipping an arm around Rebecca's waist. "You sell coffee at your pretzel palace, right?"

She wants to blame the fatigue, deep in her bones from sleeping in an uncomfortable position all night, or maybe the fact that she's just spent three dream-days on an emotional rollercoaster in her own head, but deep down Rebecca knows she doesn't need an excuse to throw both her arms around Paula and squeeze tightly. "I'm just really glad you're my friend and I wouldn't trade it for anything."

Paula makes a little noise of surprise, then squeezes right back. "Me too, munchkin."

In this precise moment, at 8:56am on a Tuesday morning, Rebecca Bunch still has a lot of regrets. But in this precise moment, as she sits with Paula drinking cheap coffee from her own pretzel shop while sunlight begins to flood the lobby, Rebecca finds that those regrets don't bother her quite so much as they did yesterday. Or four days ago. Or whatever.

("Time is a social construct anyway!" Rebecca declares to AJ, apropos of nothing, two hours and five cups of coffee later. By now, AJ knows it's foolish to ask.)


End file.
